Page 71 of The Bear's Heart
“Shut up!” Cei stepped forward and struck him with his huge fist on the side of his head, knocking him to the ground. Blood trickled from the corner of Melwas’s mouth.
After a moment, he sat up, shaking his head as though to clear it, still staring at me. “I was sure your welcome would be much warmer than this. We have so many shared memories.”
I bristled with indignation and would have taken an angry step toward him had not Arthur’s arm restrained me. Instead I curled my own lips with as much scorn as I could muster. “There’s nothing I want to share with you, and my only memories are of your callous ill-treatment.”
Arthur’s arm tightened around me, drawing me closer, and when I glanced up at him, half-fearfully, I saw how his face had darkened. He nodded to the two warriors who were standing over Melwas. “Take him away and throw him in the lock-up. I don’t want to see him until his trial.”
The two warriors dragged Melwas to his feet and marched him off, a shower of stones and rotting vegetables from the crowd sending him on his way. As he went, he turned his head and, unrepentant, called back to me. “I hope to see you again soon, Gwen.”
I couldn’t help myself. “And I hope you rot in hell.”
A moment’s awkward silence hung between us all before Merlin spoke. “Arthur, come inside. I want Gwen to look at your leg.” He put an arm out that encompassed us both and ushered us into the Hall.
Once inside, Arthur discarded his sword belt on the table, then wriggled out of his mail shirt and padded tunic and threw them down on top of his weapons. Coventina brought a tray with a flagon of wine and horn beakers.
I bent to look at his leg.
He stretched it out, wincing a little. “I twisted it in battle. Bedwyr put a cooling dressing on it two days ago.”
His knee was stiff and swollen even through his braccae. “I can’t tell what damage you’ve done, but I think you’ll need a support bandage.” I gave his braccae a little tug. “You’ll have to take these off for me to get a better look.”
Without any further urging, Arthur obligingly dropped his braccae, and I knelt down in front of him. The knee was more puffy than I would have liked, and I hoped he hadn’t damaged the cartilage. My brother Artie had done that playing rugby and had needed an operation to put him right. I ran my hands over Arthur’s knee, feeling the heat of inflammation. My previous experience of bandaging legs had mainly been for horses, but the skill seemed to transfer well. What he really needed now was to rest it.
Coventina passed me a roll of bandage, and I bound his knee, conscious of not wanting to put it on so tight it would do more harm than good. An x-ray or scan would have been helpful, but he had zero chance of one of those.
“How did you come to capture Melwas alive?” Merlin asked, from his position sitting on the table where Arthur had piled his mail shirt and tunic.
I got to my feet again, worrying whether I’d done the right thing in putting a bandage on what might be a badly damaged knee. It was a long time since I’d done that first aid course back in my old world.
Arthur pulled up his braccae and gave his friend a triumphant grin. “We stormed the fortress. At dawn. He wasn’t expecting us.” He took a long draught of the wine Coventina had brought. “We stayed hidden in the forest until just before first light, then crossed the causeway in darkness and on foot. We were on the slopes of Dinas Brent before his guards saw us.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “We’d made scaling ladders in the forest, and had them up against the walls and were over as they sounded the alarm. It was a short fight but a sweet one.” He grinned without mirth. “I told my men I wanted Melwas unharmed– well, not dead, at least. They all knew why we were there. They cornered him in his hall. It was surrender or nothing. He surrendered.”
“And the child slaves?” I asked, thinking of Bretta. “Did you find them?”
He nodded. “There weren’t many. We set them free, and I’ve had them sent back to Caer Baddan with orders to Bassus that they’re to be housed and fed at his expense. Or he’ll meet the same fate as his lord.”
Surely Bretta would be happy with that? Although it was too late for her own family, saving the others must make a difference.
“What d’you intend to do with Melwas?” Merlin asked.
“Put him on trial.” Arthur drained his horn beaker, his eyes meeting Merlin’s in challenge over the rim. “Put him on trial and then execute him for his crimes.”
A forgone conclusion– not a real trial at all, then. Did I think he deserved one?
I turned to Maia, who had slipped through the door from our chamber and was hovering nearby. “Go back to keep an eye on Amhar. I don’t like him to be alone.” She scurried off.
Arthur set down his empty beaker, and Cei, who’d just come in, poured one for himself then refilled Arthur’s. “Melwas is safely stowed in our lock-up. He won’t be getting out of there until we want him to.” They both laughed, and I felt my stomach twist. Much as I hated Melwas, I feared what Arthur’s justice in this case might entail. This was an era of the Biblical “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” and Melwas had taken many lives. Killing him in battle seemed a much more acceptable ending for him than cold blooded execution would.
A slight, bent figure darkened the doorway, pausing on the threshold, and we all turned our heads in curiosity. “Where is my son?” a voice quavered. Old Olwyn, Melwas’s mother, stood there, her eyes and hair wild as she stared down the hall to where we’d gathered by the fire pit.
“Your son is in a safe place,” Cei said, a look of distaste on his big face. He’d never taken to Olwyn the way I had, always steering clear of her as the mother of an enemy, and as such, untrustworthy.
She took a few uncertain steps into the hall, pausing by the first table to lean on it, her wrinkled face deathly pale. “He won’t escape…will he?” Her crepey chins wobbled with emotion and her rheumy red-rimmed eyes glistened, moist with unshed tears.
I went to her and put my arms around her frail and somewhat odorous body. “You’ve nothing to be afraid of. He can’t get at you. He’s imprisoned in the lock-up. He can’t escape to hurt you. You’re safe here.”
The words seemed to have little effect on her. A tremor ran through her and she pulled herself free of my hold. “Ye don’t know what he can do,” she quavered. “Even from inside a cell, my son has power.”
Bretta’s hate-filled words echoed in my head. I wished with all my heart that Arthur had let his men kill Melwas when they’d cornered him, and not brought him back here to Din Cadan. His presence hung like a malevolent shadow over the fortress, and it felt as though we were collectively holding our breath, waiting for something awful to happen.
