Page 69 of The Bear's Heart
“I don’t think I’ve thanked you yet.” He spoke into my hair, his breath warm on my scalp. “For the strong and handsome son you’ve given me.”
I resisted the temptation to comment that this baby was as much mine as his, if not more so, considering the work I’d just done, and that no giving had been involved. But it would have been wasted on Arthur with his fifth-century mind set. He was my husband, and I loved him dearly, but he certainly had his failings.
Instead, I chose another moot point that had been preying on my mind and I’d not heard the end of, Donella having whisked me off before a conclusion had been reached. “Where’s Bretta?”
Arthur’s body stiffened. “She’s been taken care of.” His tone was one of dismissal. He didn’t want to talk about this.
I twisted round to face him, my face inches from his. Despite the tooth brushing, he had a distinct smell of alcohol about him. “How?”
“Cottia has taken her.” He put his hand up and smoothed my hair from my face. That was normally a gesture of love, but here and now it was just a distraction tactic.
I persevered. “What about Melwas? What are you going to do about what she told us?”
He was silent. I guessed he was trying to think of something with which to fob me off.
I hammered my point home. “Melwas killed all those children.” I could feel myself beginning to get worked up, the contented post-birth sensation wearing off. My gaze strayed to the crib, where little Amhar was making kittenish snuffling noises in his sleep. “How could anyone kill little children– like our son?”
“No babies were killed.” Arthur was ever practical. “The orphans were older children capable of looking after themselves. Don’t compare our son with them.” In the dim light of the dying torches he sketched the sign against the evil eye in the air, as though my words could bring bad luck on our child.
I didn’t believe in bad luck any more than I believed in prophecies. Or did I? “Melwas would kill him if he could.” I wanted Arthur to put himself in the position of these children. But I was fighting a losing battle as it wasn’t a skill he was good at.
“It’s done.” He had the distinct air of someone for whom this would be the final word. “There’s nothing we can do to undo it. But I won’t let this go unpunished.” He kissed my forehead. “Go to sleep. You’ll need some rest before Amhar wakes for a feed.”
*
Amhar was aweek old when Arthur rode away from Din Cadan to wreak punishment on Melwas. I’d been up and about from the day following his birth, which neither Donella nor Coventina seemed to think was the done thing for a queen. Oddly, the midwife had no qualms about any of the other women going straight back to work with their baby in a sling across their bodies. But a queen? No, a queen was a different basket of wheat and had to stay in bed for at least a week.
I put my foot down. Hard. Apart from being a bit bruised and feeling as though I were walking bandy-legged, I was absolutely fine and knew that as long as I took it easy, it would be far better to be up and about than to lounge in bed.
The weather was good, with warm autumn days and chilly nights, even though the festival of Samhain, that would mark the start of winter, was fast approaching. A night, Maia, my maid, informed me, and Donella reiterated, when the spirits of the dead would walk abroad and all sensible people would be safe indoors in their beds. Coventina told me a little more– that on this night our ancestors would come to our hearth fires, and we would need to leave them food and drink.
With my logical twenty-first-century head on, I knew this was all a load of twaddle, but somehow, living as I was in the fifth century, a small part of me shivered at the thought of a night of ghosts coming so soon after my baby’s birth. I found myself wondering if my father would be one of the ghosts coming to the hearth fire in the great hall, anxious to see his little grandson.
Arthur didn’t tell me his intentions toward Melwas, and I didn’t ask. Most of the time I was too taken up with my new baby. However, when I was alone and could think, I had to push away the thoughts of those blameless children lying dead in the marshes surrounding Dinas Brent, an image that mingled hauntingly with the dead faces of Ummidia and her daughters.
I glimpsed Bretta from time to time, wandering listlessly about the fortress in company with one or another of Cottia’s daughters or granddaughters. She remained pale and lackluster, as though all the life had been drained out of her with the loss of her siblings, and I wished there were something I could do. After my failure with Ummidia, and its consequences, I feared this might drive Bretta to something similar.
My guilt over my part in their deaths, however unintentional, had left me with a feeling of disquiet over my son’s safety, despite my determination not to believe bad luck could be brought in this way. It was as though I expected daily to have him taken from me in payment for the lives I’d had an unwitting hand in ending. But he thrived, daily growing stronger and noisier and hungrier. The more time I spent with him, the more I loved him, but I still couldn’t shake off the thought that some terrible doom hung over him.
Arthur came to find me on the morning of his departure. I was sitting in bed feeding Amhar, cradling him in my arms and thinking of nothing more than how much I loved him. Arthur entered with a clatter, and through the open door I caught a glimpse of Cei and Bedwyr, waiting for him. At my breast, Amhar fed on hungrily, oblivious to his father’s arrival.
Arthur approached the bed, his face solemn, and with reluctance I raised my eyes from gazing at my son to look up at him. He was dressed for battle. He carried his helmet tucked under his arm, and his curling hair, cut short in the spring to go off on campaign, was now long enough to tuck behind his ears. Setting his helmet on the clothes chest by the bed, he leaned over to kiss me. His stubble rasped my cheek as I surrendered my lips.
The sharp tang of horses hung about him, and his hair was damp from being out in the morning mist. “I’ve come to wish you goodbye. We’re off to teach the lord of the Mount of Frogs a proper lesson. He escaped my retribution last winter. He’ll not do it again. I’ll have revenge on him for killing those children.” He sounded as though he were listing reasons to justify what he was about to do, as though without them his intentions might be misconstrued.
He straightened, and my eyes slid over his mail shirt and the sword by his side. A distinct air of excitement hovered about him, as if he were about to do something he was going to enjoy, and not for the first time doubt assuaged me. Could he have deliberately maneuvered Melwas into this? The idea shocked me, but once lodged in my head it was difficult to shift. It was an awful thought. If true, then he’d knowingly used those children as pawns in his game of chess, guessing that Melwas would do something to them that he could use against him. I tried to remember what he’d said to Kirwin, Bassus the magistrate’s deputy, but failed.
Arthur put out a hand to gently stroke Amhar’s downy dark head, and I looked up into his eyes, searching for the truth.
But did I want to hear it?
He was still my handsome husband, still the man who could make my heart lurch with love, but there was something about him today that I didn’t like. Something I mistrusted.
“What are you going to do?” That familiar knot of nerves tightened in my stomach.
He pushed his hair back from his eyes. “Show him that he can’t betray his people. Mete out the justice of the King of Dumnonia.”
Just as he’d been wanting to do since he got me back from Melwas all those months ago. And now he had the excuse.
