Page 59 of The Bear's Heart
She shook her head with violence. “There are no possible words of comfort. My daughters are ruined. My husband is dead. All his lands and property have been taken from him, and from us, on trumped-up charges of embezzlement. There’s nothing left for us. Nothing left for my daughters.”
I sat beside her in silence, unable to think of anything else to say. I’d had no training in rape counseling, or counseling of any sort, but common sense told me to shut up, to not tell her again that things would be all right in the end. That had been a crass thing to say and her reaction had proved it. But surely I was right, and with the passage of time, the memory would become less awful? Just as my own memory of my mother’s death had faded. I struggled to imagine how they must be feeling, wishing there were something I could do.
On the bed, Albina began to bang the back of her head on the wall. Not hard, but rhythmically, like a caged animal under stress. It was painful to watch.
I couldn’t do this. There’d been nothing in my life to prepare me for this sort of thing. Getting to my feet, I looked round at them all, tears running down my cheeks. Tears for all of them, and for my inability to help. “I-I’ll come back in a while,” I said to blank silence.
The girls, whom I remembered as so lively and charming, didn’t even look at me.
“If you need me, send a servant and I’ll come straight away.” I paused. “I’ll do anything– anything I can to help you. Remember that.” And then I left, like the coward I was.
Morgawse found me sobbing in the garden, perched on the wall beside the small pool at the center. She didn’t have the baby with her, so I guessed he must be sleeping somewhere. Sitting down, she put a hand on one of mine and squeezed it.
I wiped my nose on the back of my other hand and gave a big sniff which became more of an inelegant snort. She laughed, and I managed a damp laugh with her.
After a moment or two I looked up, warily. “Were you raped as well?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. I’m the king’s sister.”
That was some relief, anyway.
“What happened?” I asked. “When the soldiers came to Euddolen’s villa? Do you feel able to tell me?”
She did.
The soldiers had come four days ago, unexpectedly marching up to the villa in the middle of the afternoon. As here, the farm workers were busy bringing in the hay crop from the meadows down by the river, and the soldiers managed to arrive with no warning. They were mostly Saxon foederati, but led by a British captain Morgawse vaguely knew, Donat. He stormed into the house and found Euddolen in his office where he served him with notice that he was being arrested for embezzlement. Of course, Euddolen denied it angrily, but the soldiers were taking no nonsense and dragged him, bloodied but still very much alive, through the garden toward the stable courtyard.
“One of them grabbed me, so I saw everything.” Morgawse spoke with uncharacteristic coldness, as though recounting a chance meeting with a distant friend. “Ummidia and her daughters came running. They wanted to save Euddolen, I think, but the soldiers grabbed them, as well. Then Donat nodded to his soldiers– all of them Saxons– and–” She faltered. “They stripped the women naked and raped them all. Here, in the garden.”
Of course, as Donat expected, Euddolen was unable to stand and watch this happen, and when he attacked the men raping his daughters, he was run through and lay dying on the flagstones while his daughters were deflowered before his eyes.
“I knew better than to resist,” Morgawse said with a shiver. “I cowered with my baby in my arms, for once thankful for being Cadwy’s sister. I was afraid lest any of the Saxons try to rape me as well.”
When the men were finished, they loaded Euddolen’s body into a wagon, threw in his terrified women, who were now clutching their torn gowns to cover their nakedness, and drove away with them. Some of the soldiers remained behind to make sure all the livestock were rounded up and everything of value looted. Morgawse was helped into the wagon with the other three women, and carried off to Viroconium.
“Once we arrived, they separated me from the others. At first I didn’t know what had happened to them.” Her face filled with disgust. “Then Cadwy himself told me what he’d done to the girls. He gave them to his foederati for their pleasures for a whole night. He was so pleased with himself…so triumphant. And he laughed when he told me they’d turned their noses up at Ummidia because she was too old.”
Morgawse herself was housed in her old bedchamber, and although she wasn’t allowed out of the inner courtyard, was afforded every other freedom. She took baby Medraut, for whose life she feared, to visit Karstyn, the woman who’d delivered him in the kitchen. And she sought out her sister Morgana.
“Morgana told me Medraut and I were in no danger.” She sounded puzzled. “I couldn’t think why. After all, Medraut is Theodoric’s son– Arthur’s ally. I was terrified lest they snatch him away from me– lest they decided to kill him, even though he’s just a baby. But my sister told me he was a very special child, that at all costs he must be kept safe, and that she’d told our brother so. I was relieved, but I didn’t understand.”
Hearing this part of the story, my own heart gave a little skip of fear. Morgana possessed the Sight. Had she seen the future I half-suspected might lie before Medraut? Could she know he was destined to bring Arthur to his downfall in battle at fateful Camlann?
Morgawse had felt huge relief on hearing that her child was safe, a relief that lasted all of two days. Then Cei came to Viroconium, and Cadwy hatched his plot to trap Arthur at Din Bassas.
“It was Morgana who said he must take the women, me included. I had no idea why until I heard the driver speaking to one of our guards. She wanted Euddolen’s women, because after the ambush, which Cadwy was sure he’d win, he was going to execute them and leave their naked bodies tied to posts at the battleground. A warning to any who might think to cross him.” She swallowed. “Morgana wanted me to see this. And most of all she wanted me to witness the death of Arthur.”
This had understandably sown the seeds of doubt about her sister in Morgawse’s mind.
Arthur. We still had no news of him or of how the battle had gone. A nasty knot of anxiety roiled in my stomach and my child did a frantic drumming on my insides, as if he knew his father was missing.
“I didn’t know what to say to Ummidia and her daughters,” Morgawse said, with deep sadness. “I wasn’t raped. And yet they were. And I’d heard what was to happen to them after the ambush. They had too. There was nothing we could say to one another.”
I nodded. “I feel the same. As far as I know, I’ve never known anyone who was raped. I couldn’t think of anything remotely adequate.”
Reflecting on our shortcomings, we sat in silence together without need of further words. Our lack of understanding, our feelings of impotence and rage, united us.
An hour later, Caswallan found us still in the garden. He hurried up the path toward us, his face suffused with excitement. “Outriders!” he shouted, waving his arms. “Outriders have arrived! News! The battle is won! Cadwy has retreated back to Viroconium. King Arthur marches this way!”
