Page 23 of The Bear's Heart

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“A machine is something that works without you having to pull it or push it. A bit like how the mill down in the village does the work women used to do with a quern. We have machines for lots of things. Some can carry us about without horses, and there are machines that can fly, and boats that don’t need sails or oars.”

He looked overwhelmed and slightly disbelieving, but he fastened on something that hadn’t occurred to me. “Yet you chose to be here, instead of there. You prefer it here.” His eyes narrowed again. “Tell me the bad things about your world.”

An easy task. “There are too many people. Everywhere’s too crowded. The machines have to run on hard surfaces so there are roads everywhere– all over the country. Everyone has to go to work to earn money to pay for their houses. Not like here where you can just build one where you like. Everything revolves around money. I worked in a library, a place full of books, every day from morning until evening. I was saving up to buy a house of my own. If you don’t earn money, you can’t buy food or pay for your house. Mostly only farmers grow food. And there’s lots of pollution.”

“I know what a library is.” He sounded affronted. “But I don’t know this word pollution.”

The relief at having at last been honest with him loosened my tongue. I explained at length about pollution, which led me into the realms of science that I knew very little about. However, as Arthur knew even less, I reasoned that a few mistakes on my part wouldn’t matter. We ended up back on healthcare eventually.

“So you see why I don’t want Mother Nara putting her dirty hands anywhere near me when I go into labor,” I said. “In your time– no, in our time, lots of women die because they catch infections from dirty hands during the delivery. I want someone clean, someone who knows what she’s doing, someone who knows a bit about a woman’s insides.”

He put his arm around me. “We’ll go to my town of Caer Pensa. I’ve a house there, not so big as Cadwy’s palace, but it’s a house with a hypocaust and baths and servants. Different from here. We’ll take a part of the army so we’re well defended and leave the rest here with Cei. I want you to have all the care you’d be having if you were back in your own time.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “I don’t need mollycoddling, but in this cold some underfloor heating would be nice. And a house with baths would be wonderful.”

So the next day we rode to Caer Pensa.

Chapter Nine

Caer Pensa wasonly about eight miles from Din Cadan along muddy cart tracks that eventually led to the paved Roman Fosse Way. High, well-built stone walls surrounded a sizeable settlement of some twenty acres. Within these walls, townhouses constructed over a century ago decayed gently alongside more recent wattle and daub buildings. Between the houses, cabbage patches and root vegetables grew, and pens of pigs and chickens squeezed into whatever space was left. Outside the walls clustered more houses, running out along the road in both directions, and interspersed with industry. The air hung heavy with the smells of the tanneries and the smoke from forges and kilns.

Arthur’s house, the Domus Regis, was a large townhouse whose doors opened onto one side of the old forum. The flaking, plaster-covered walls and terracotta roofs betrayed its Roman origins. Alongside it, a stable block of later construction squatted low and thatched, like an old British woman beside an ascetic Roman. Here was where Arthur’s men and their horses were accommodated.

I liked the house straight away. Especially the hypocaust, which kept every room pleasantly warm even in this, the drear end of winter. Unlike the Imperial Palace at Viroconium, the house possessed an atmosphere of cozy intimacy, with most of its rooms opening off the garden courtyard or the atrium. I settled in with no trouble and made the most of the small suite of still-usable baths.

I rode the eight miles there on Alezan, and kept up my riding when the weather permitted, exploring the countryside that surrounded the town and farmlands with Arthur, or, more often, Merlin. Marshes abounded, so we always took a local man familiar with the safer paths. Higher ground snaked between the wetlands, with stunted thorn trees and willows dotting the landscape. Sheep and cattle grazed these rough pastures during daylight hours, but were brought in every night to the safety of their pens.

Now that my condition was known, Merlin refused to let me gallop as I’d done the day he’d guessed my secret. Instead, I had to be content with keeping to a steady pace as we explored the surrounding countryside while spring’s warm fingers crept across the land.

The days were lengthening nicely, and spring flowers had begun to show their delicate faces on the grassy field banks and in the meadows, when Cei came riding down the road from Din Cadan. I was on my hands and knees in the courtyard garden of the King’s House planting primroses, which some of the younger warriors had dug up for me in the woods. At the sound of footsteps, I looked up to see him striding toward me along the stone-flagged pathway.

“Milady.” He executed a generous bow as I got to my feet. “I trust all is well with you and–” He paused and vaguely indicated my still nearly flat belly, “—the babe.”

I smiled a welcome to him. Of all Arthur’s men, his brother, Cei, the huge ginger-headed warrior, was my favorite. On first meeting him I’d thought him as tough as he looked. However, now that I knew him better, I’d discovered that beneath his gruff exterior lurked a bit of a softie. He was very attached to his own son, Rhiwallon, a lanky ten-year-old who saw himself as a budding warrior, and was equally fond of his nephew, Llacheu. I often spotted him off with the boys practicing archery or sword fighting, or simply playing games, and I liked him very much for that.

I put my hand on my belly. “The sickness has gone at last, so I’m feeling much better and able to eat my breakfast every day. How is Coventina?” I’d been sad to bid farewell to his wife, whom I’d made friends with at Din Cadan. Cei tried hard to conceal his love for her, but it was impossible. Everyone knew they were a couple the gods had smiled on. His only disappointment was that ever since she’d had a miscarriage when Rhiwallon was two, there’d been no further pregnancies. Because of this, and his love for his younger brother, I assumed, he was interested in my progress in his own shy way.

“That’s good.” He gave me a bashful smile as we were discussing women’s things. “Coventina’s well. She told me to tell you she was sick all the way through with our son, but that usually it passes after a few months.”

Sitting down on the wall of the fountain in the center of the garden, I stretched out my legs which had grown cramped with kneeling to plant flowers. “Sit beside me.” I patted the stone coping.

He sat, a little stiffly. “I’m looking for Arthur, really, but it’s good to see you…to find that you’re doing well here. A military fortress like Din Cadan is no place for a queen. Especially not a queen who’s, er…in your condition.”

“Is there anything wrong at Din Cadan?” I was suddenly worried, perhaps because of Cei’s awkwardness. However, if there had been a serious problem, Cei’s open, honest face couldn’t have hidden it.

He shook his head emphatically. “No, nothing. Spring ploughing is just starting, lambing is underway already, and we’ve had a few calves out in the grazing lands. The houses for the new warriors are coming on quickly now we’ve the weather for building. The boys are growing fast. I’m sure they grow quicker in the spring. Rhiwallon’s had his braccae lengthened for the second time since autumn. Llacheu’s learned to jump up on his pony without a mounting block.”

I laughed. These were the things that mattered to Cei: that the agricultural year should be proceeding unhindered and the boys he loved should be doing the same.

“So, what brings you here?”

He frowned. “I’ve had…” he began and then stopped and bit his lip. I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. “We’vehad a visitation.”

His reticence puzzled me. “What sort of a visitation?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. On his lap, his hands bunched into fists and he deliberately relaxed them. “A messenger from our mother.”

“Oh.” I knew next to nothing about Eigr, the mother of Cei and Arthur, bar what the legends in my old world had told me. She’d been married to Gorlois, Lord of Din Tagel, when Uthyr Pendragon, then king of Dumnonia, took a fancy to her. Gorlois ended up dead, Uthyr got the woman he wanted, and Arthur was born. Cei had been three years old when his father, Gorlois, died.