Page 3 of The Bear's Heart

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I chewed my lower lip. That was a tough question. There was so much. Most of which I couldn’t tell him. Artie’s face sprang into my head.

“My brother,” I said, hitting on the one thing he might understand. Artie was the only member of my family left.

He thought about that for a moment. “Is he like you?”

I shrugged, thinking of Artie, my careless, carefree brother, named by my father for the man by my side. “Not really. We’re twins. He went off round the world and left me to look after our father. He didn’t come back when Dad was dying. I wanted him to, but he didn’t. I guess we’re only as alike as brothers and sisters usually are.”

“My brothers and sisters aren’t alike.”

That was true. Morgana, who possessed the Sight, had a clever, sly face matching her tough personality. By contrast, Morgawse, the youngest in the family, whose baby son, Medraut, I’d helped deliver, seemed fragile and delicate. And as for Arthur’s aggressive, envious half-brother, Cadwy, very little about him resembled Arthur.

We rode on in quiet companionship, the light rain falling steadily, beading in our hair and on our woolen cloaks. A certain complacency clung to Arthur, as though my not mentioning I’d miss Nathan had been significant. Which it had been. When he’d asked what I’d miss most, Artie’s face had sprung to mind, not Nathan’s.

Chapter Two

As we emergedfrom the forest onto the plain, a damp early-evening mist was already rising over the farmlands. Our horses were nearly as tired as we were, and the familiar bulk of the hillfort, with smoke rising from its unseen rooftops, was a welcome sight.

Through the evening gloom, a score of heavily armed warriors led by Merlin and Cei rode into view, an unwelcome interruption to our intimate ride back.

“Where in God’s name have you been?” Cei almost shouted as he rode up to us, his big face suffused with anxiety. “We didn’t even know which direction you’d taken.” He glanced over his shoulder at Merlin, who sat his horse with a resigned expression on his thin, ageless face. Had he guessed where we’d gone? After all, he did possess the Sight and, using it, had stolen me from my own time to bring me here to marry Arthur. He’d surely have known, as soon as our absence was noticed, that we’d headed to the Tor.

Arthur might have been tired, but the events at the Tor had buoyed him up. “We rode to the Lake Village,” he called out, urging his horse up to Cei’s.

Merlin’s gaze fell on me, his dark eyes full of speculation. I schooled my face into indifference. By bringing me here from my world, he’d made me a queen, and now he would have to live with the consequences.

Arthur clasped Cei’s hand. “I’m sorry we worried you. We took a boat to the Holy Isle…a longer trip than I expected.”

Cei’s serious face softened into a grin. “Did you meet our boyhood shades there, fishing for fat trout from Nial’s boat?”

Arthur laughed. “No, but it was Nial who took us across to the island. In the same boat, I’d wager. Not so watertight as it used to be, I fear.”

Their carefree laughter at these shared childhood memories rose to the evening sky, and for a moment I felt excluded. I didn’t mind. The ride back from the Lake Village had been one of deep, mostly unspoken intimacy between Arthur and me, and nothing had the power to dispel that. My decision to remain in the fifth century when I could have returned home had cemented us firmly together.

Cei’s search party wheeled their horses. “I’d have sent out parties east and west as well, but Merlin felt sure you’d come this way.”

“His instincts were right,” Arthur said, as he fell in beside his half-brother.

Behind them, Merlin brought his horse in next to mine. He rode close enough for our knees to knock together, his long legs hanging loose by his horse’s sides. Unlike mine, which were supported by the stirrups Goff the smith had made to my design, an innovation to fifth-century Britain. “Did you climb the Tor?” he asked in an undertone, curiosity in his voice.

With my eyes fixed on the road ahead, I nodded, unable to keep the smile off my face. Inside, despite my reservations, I glowed with the intoxicating thought that I loved Arthur and he loved me, so much that he’d been prepared to let me go because he thought it was what I wanted.

“And did the doorway open?” Merlin asked.

Our horses’ hooves clattered as we reached the cobbled road that ran between the farmsteads below the hillfort. Smoke rose from their thatched roofs, pigs rooted in muddy pens, and on a rooftop a cockerel with no sense of time crowed loudly to the setting sun.

I nodded again, giving Merlin a quick sidelong glance and trying unsuccessfully to remove the smile from my lips. I’d just done something he’d been actively trying to prevent during all my time in the fifth century. Would he be angry?

He smiled, a glow of triumph in his eyes. “You didn’t step through it.” He paused, looking at Arthur’s straight back ahead of us. “You chose to stay.”

“Yes.”

“I knew you would.”

Damn him.

A thought struck me. Had heletArthur and me ride out by ourselves, so Arthur could take me to the Tor? Maybe he’d recognized my need to choose before I could commit to a life here as Arthur’s queen. Had he known what my choice would be? He didn’t appear in the least bit worried, merely curious. Perhaps he’d also known we’d be quite safe out together with no guards. He did possess the Sight, after all.

Turning in my saddle, I looked at him properly. “I chose to stay,” I said. “Not because you wanted me to stay, or because a prophecy said I should. But because I love Arthur.” A frown flitted across his face. “And also because I know the future and believe I can change things.” I paused. “As you do, too.”