Page 31 of The Bear's Heart
Wise move. He was something of a diplomat.
Arthur got to his feet as well, pulling me up beside him. “The Queen and I will take the royal chambers.” He pulled me close. “I don’t care where the rest of you go. We need to be alone.” And with that he marched me through the door at the end of the hall and into the chamber that no doubt belonged to his mother.
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Arthur slammed the door behind us and pulled me forcefully into his arms, holding me against his mail shirt. “Don’t listen to her.”
So easy for him to say, but far more difficult for me to do. Without my knowledge of the legends, I might have been able to dismiss what she’d said, but around my heart a fear was creeping inexorably to encircle it. A fear that she might indeed have the Sight and have seen Arthur’s future.
I put my arms around him, uncertain what to do or say. We stood like that for a few minutes before he gently pushed me away, holding my arms and looking down into my face. “But what you told her…is that true? That I’ll be remembered as the most famous king of all time?”
I’d done it now. I nodded. “Where I come from, everyone knows about you.” In for a penny. “But no one really knows who you were. You’re a name, a cipher from a time long ago, an enigma…a mystery.” I put my hand up and stroked his stubbly cheek. “And it’s because of the mystery that surrounds you that you’re known world-wide. So many legends cling to your name– so many have been added over the years, it’s impossible to know what’s history and what’s fanciful fairy tale.”
“That’s enough for me.” His face was serious. “Don’t tell me anything else. I don’t want to know if your legends hold anything of what my mother predicts. I don’t believe in prophecies. A man carves his own fate with his deeds. I refuse to let her carve mine for me with her mewling fortune telling. It’s a trick, a way to control me, to win me back. Well, it won’t work. You’re my wife, and I refuse to listen to her lies about you.”
Taking my hand, he led me to the bed. “Come, lie down and rest. We’ve had a long four days of riding and you’ve been sleeping on less than comfortable beds.”
I lay down on Eigr’s bed and let Arthur pull my boots off. He was right. I was exhausted. He sat on the edge of the bed and gently stroked my hair. “Nothing will ever come between us,” he said. “I won’t let it.”
I closed my eyes and tried to push away the images that kept jostling for space in my head, of his rebellious nephew Medraut and of the far off battle of Camlann.
Chapter Twelve
We spent fivelong days at Din Tagel. Cei had business that needed attending to with his warriors, and on three of those days, he and Arthur rode inland, to visit some of Cei’s villages. While he was there, Arthur kept me close to him, almost as though he suspected his mother planned to do me harm. When he was absent, Merlin, like a watchful guard dog, kept me by his side.
Arthur and his mother had agreed to an uneasy truce. They exchanged small talk when we ate together, but the atmosphere between them remained icy and neither of them appeared able to thaw it. He plainly didn’t want to, and she didn’t know how. If I hadn’t felt so awkward around her, I might have tried myself to foster some sort of accord between them, but what with my constant bodyguard, I didn’t get the chance.
It didn’t surprise me that there was no love lost between Merlin and Eigr. According to the story I knew, Merlin had been the one who’d transformed Uthyr’s appearance so that he resembled her husband, Gorlois, and could gain entry to Din Tagel to have his way with Eigr and conceive Arthur. Although I doubted this version of events was true, I had no doubts that Merlin had played his part in somehow bringing about Arthur’s conception.
On the fourth day, a trading ship arrived from the Mediterranean. Arthur and I walked with Cei over the headland and down the precipitous path to the rocky landing stage on the leeward side of the island. I was curious to see a ship of this era and what sort of goods they’d brought. We’d wrapped up well, although the day was bright. A stiff westerly wind sent small clouds scudding across a blue sky that had changed the sea from the grey of our arrival to a deep green, fringed with the white caps of the waves. Gulls called overhead, and the salt smell of sea spray was in the air.
The ship was much smaller than I’d expected, with only one mast and a single sail, now furled. Tied fore and aft to metal rings hammered into the stone, she bobbed against the rocky wall of the jetty, her painted sides protected by ropework fenders. A large party of men from the fortress was already at work, laboring to unload a cargo of tall amphorae.
“Wine from Gaul, olive oil and olives from Hispania, and if we’re lucky, some garum from Byzantium,” Cei explained when he saw me looking at them.
I frowned, puzzled by the last item.
“Fish sauce.” His honest face broke into a grin. “Made with fish guts. Stinks to buggery but tastes like heaven when it’s used in cooking. We don’t often get any.”
There were also crates, which Cei told me contained fine tableware, and smaller pots of exotic spices and perfumes, along with some well-wrapped bolts of cloth. The camphorous smell of the cedar chests the cloth had been packed in was strong. At the same time, another group of men hauled what looked like ingots of metal, partly wrapped in rough cloth and bound with rope-handles, back onto the ship.
“Tin from our mines,” Cei said. “And copper, too. We do a good trade every summer when the ships come. Thanks to the fine weather, this one’s quite early. They vie to be the first, and this one’s had the jump on the rest.”
The captain of the ship approached us. A small, hennaed beard covered his chin, and gold earrings decorated both ears in abundance. He wore curious baggy trousers, gathered at the ankle, and a brightly colored tunic covered by a leather jacket studded with shiny copper buttons. A red bandana round his head gave him a piratical appearance.
“Milord Cei.” They clasped each other’s hands. “You ’ave a good amount of the tin thees time. Good it ees that the weather ’as given to me the advantage over my rivals.”
Despite his accent, he spoke our language well. Latin, I presumed, as it was unlikely a trader from the Mediterranean would be familiar with the Celtic tongue.
Cei grinned. “Lucky for you, Xander, and for us.” He gestured at the wares piling up on the dockside. “But first I must present you to my king.” He turned. “Arthur of Dumnonia, and his Queen, the Lady Guinevere, this is Captain Xander of theBlue Siren.”
Captain Xander swept us a deep bow and came up with a roguish smile, his black eyes looking me up and down. “Milord Arthur, Milady Guinevere.”
I liked the way our names rolled off his tongue and the irrepressible look in his bright eyes. It was impossible not to smile back.
“It ees a lucky man you are, milord Arthur,” he said. “To be ’aving a queen of such beauty ees a rare and unexpected gift.” He laughed. “Few men are so blessed. I myself ’ave to me four wives– each in a different port, but none ’ave the grace and elegance of yours.”
Arthur gave him a friendly nod. “Thank you, Captain Xander. I can only think that four wives would be a burden to a man such as yourself.”
The captain let out a guffaw of laughter. “That they would be, if ever any got wind of the others!”
