Page 32 of The Bear's Heart
All three men laughed together, united by their common masculinity and the marriage arrangements of an old sea dog. Then Arthur questioned the captain about the news from the Mediterranean, talk of people and places I didn’t know, so instead of listening, I watched the captain’s men working alongside Cei’s. They were all as dark or darker than their captain, and one or two looked as though they came from Africa. Although the captain spoke our tongue, these men conversed with one another in a language I didn’t recognize.
Despite us being on the leeward side of the island, a stiff wind still blew, and theBlue Sirenbobbed up and down, scraping against the side of the stone jetty, making it difficult for the men to load and unload her. But at last, they had all the goods from the ship stacked on the jetty, and almost all the tin was in the ship’s hold.
“Are you staying long?” I asked the captain, as we stood to one side while the last of the tin disappeared into his hold.
He shook his head. “I would be most honored to spend time with you, Milady the beautiful Queen, but the tide will not allow it. Soon it will begin to ebb and my ship will ’ave to be on ’er way. We can never dawdle ’ere, much to my sorrow. Especially now that I see there ees a lady so beautiful with whom to speak.” He certainly knew how to flatter a woman.
He was right about the tide. Already it was falling, and theBlue Sirenwas sitting lower in the water as her load of tin increased. Much longer, and it would be impossible to board her.
Captain Xander bowed to Cei and Arthur with a flamboyance that matched his personality. “Until the next time, my lords. The captain, ’e return now to the Middle Sea and will sell on your tin at great profit so that ’e may buy more goods and bring them ’ere to your leetle fog-wrapped island. But next time, I will bring jewels for your queen and gifts that will please ’er. Maybe an educated bird that speaks like a Roman consul, or a monkey to make ’er laugh. And I will tell all I meet of the beautiful queen ’idden in the far west, so that ’er beauty will be known throughout the world. And I will tell that she ees the queen of the great King Arthur of Dumnonia.”
My cheeks flushed at the compliment.
The smile on Arthur’s face was genuine. He held out his hand. “And I look forward to meeting you again one day, Captain Xander.”
They shook hands, and with the agility of a mountain goat, Xander took hold of a shroud and vaulted down onto his deck, just as his men released the fore and aft ropes holding theBlue Sirento the wharf. They pushed her off with long poles and in a moment, she swung away from the rocks out into the ocean swell. The men on board hauled up her sail, chanting as they did so.
As the wind filled the sail, the ship pulled away, and the last I saw of Captain Xander was his red bandana as he took it off and waved it at us.
*
On the lastday of our visit to Din Tagel, I finally found myself alone with Eigr. Arthur and Cei had ridden out to inspect the fishing village up the coast first thing that morning. I was tired after the previous day spent at the landing stage, so Arthur left me in bed, dozing. As a consequence, Merlin must have grown bored with waiting in the Hall and wandered away to climb to the peak of the promontory, taking advantage of the clearness of the day. So it was into an almost empty Hall that I emerged, halfway through the morning.
Eigr was seated at the high table, where we’d eaten every evening with her warriors, no, with Cei’s warriors. Hard to think of them as his when he was never there. Realizing Eigr was alone, I hesitated on the threshold, unsure whether I wanted to encounter her by myself. Her fanaticism and conviction that I had blood on my hands frightened me to my very core. I might be a twenty-first-century girl, but the longer I stayed in the fifth century, the more its superstitions seemed believable. However, since our first meeting, there’d been no more talk of prophecies of impending doom flowing with blood. Any time we’d spent with her, the talk had remained about the surrounding lands over which she ruled in Cei’s stead. So after the briefest hesitation, I continued into the Hall.
Today, I’d chosen a flowing, dark blue gown, conscious of the fact that the color suited me well. My chestnut hair was bound in two long plaits that reached to the small of my back.
Eigr must have sensed my presence, because she looked up from what she was doing and her cold blue eyes took me in from head to foot.
Scattered about her were some thin tablets of wood, about the size of the average paperback book, and a brass inkwell with a wooden pen lying beside it. This piqued my interest. So far, I’d seen very little sign of literacy in the fifth century, apart from Uthyr Pendragon’s last testament, a brief document actually written by Merlin on Arthur’s instruction before we’d even left Din Cadan.
Determined not to let her psych me out, I gave her a pleasant smile and dropped a sweeping curtsey, something she’d never have seen before as the curtsey originated in the sixteenth century. She looked surprised, but I was sure I looked elegant performing it.
“My lady Guinevere,” she said, frostily, as I rose from the curtsey.
I could be just as frosty. “My lady Eigr.”
“I trust you slept well.” She reached out to gather the tablets of wood. “Cei tells me your day at the wharf tired you out.”
“I did, thank you,” I said sweetly. “And yes, I was tired after yesterday. But the bed is very comfortable.” Too late, I remembered it was her bed. I pressed my lips together and vowed to think before I spoke again.
There wasn’t much else to say on the subject, so she remained silent. We continued to regard one another, like two dogs eyeing each other up for a fight. The seconds stretched out, before she remembered what she was doing and started stacking the wooden tablets. When they were finally arranged to her liking, she pointed to the seat beside hers. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me about yourself.”
As an invitation, it could have done with a bit more welcome in her tone.
Nevertheless, I came around the table and, pulling out the seat, sat down beside her. She smelled of a rich perfume that no doubt Captain Xander or one of his fellow traders had brought from the Mediterranean. Running my eyes over the table top, I noticed that the top wooden tablet had lines of small spidery writing, but it was too far away to read. Eigr picked up the pen and slipped it into a leather pouch, but not before I saw it was made of a piece of doweling with a thin length of metal coiled around one end, finishing in a shaped point for writing.
“Could I have a look at your pen?” I asked, unable to think of anything else to say that might break the ice between us.
With reluctance, she drew the pen out again and put it into my hands. Turning it over, I saw how cleverly it had been constructed and yet so simply. You could dip the pen into your ink and, when you were writing, the spiral of closely wound metal would act like a tiny ink cartridge and funnel the ink down to the tip. I turned it over in my hands before handing it back to her with a plastered-on smile.
“Very interesting. Thank you.”
“Are you an educated woman?” she asked.
Telling her about my university degree seemed pointless. “I can read and write,” I said. “And do some mathematics.”
For the first time, her face held something other than hostility to me. “You can reckon?”
