Page 77 of The Bear's Heart
I had the distinct sensation of groping blindly in the dark. “What did Melwas say to you?” I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from his lips.
His silence drove me on. I was gabbling, but I couldn’t stop myself. “It was a lie.” I tried to sound braver than I felt. “Whatever he said to you, it was a lie designed to hurt you. He knew he’d lost, so he hit back at you in the only way he had left.” I paused, disturbed by his stillness and a terrible feeling of impending doom. “Don’t let it come between us. Please.”
The silence in the room lingered. Even Amhar was quiet. I couldn’t read Arthur, didn’t know what he was thinking. The differences between him and me had never been greater. I struggled to think of something else to say– anything, to break that heavy silence.
My thoughts ran overtime. At the same time the doubts I already had about Medraut groped their way to the surface from the depths where I’d locked them away these last few months. I didn’t want to think about them. I didn’t want to consider that my husband and his sister might have committed incest, but the thought was there, bubbling up like a festering sore. And as before, once thought, impossible to unthink.
He remained silent, his presence brooding, almost a threat, still gazing at Amhar.
I shivered involuntarily. “You have to ignore what Melwas said. He wanted to hurt you, and me, and Amhar, in the only way he had left.”
I felt like a fool, my voice running on to fill the gaping silence, wishing he would speak to me. I’d spent the last few hours trying to put myself inside his head and guess what he was thinking, to no avail. He was a closed book.
“Everything was an act,” I went on, wanting to convince him, and at the same time acutely aware I was sounding more and more desperate and giving veracity to whatever that evil man had said. “Everything he said and did was to goad you into fighting him and making a mistake that he could take advantage of.”
Arthur turned his head to look at me again and licked his lips. “I know.” He didn’t sound convinced. His voice was oddly flat, as though the day had drained all the fight out of him. As though he could no longer be bothered.
I wanted to shout at him, to force a stronger reaction. I wanted him to challenge me so I could argue, to fight me as he’d fought Melwas, and I wanted to win. But he stayed glum and silent, oddly accepting of my words, and yet I could sense an undercurrent of disbelief running through him as prominent as the scales on a crocodile. An animal he would probably never have heard of.
“Sit down.” I patted the bed. “Sit down, and let’s talk about this. You have to tell me what he said to you.”
He hesitated.
I patted the bed again and drew my feet up out of his way. “Please. We need to talk. We can’t just ignore this.”
Awkwardly, he eased himself down on the edge of the bed at a distance from me, his wounds obviously paining him. What he needed was a dose of morphine and some antibiotics, but his chances of anything like that were zero. Honey was the most antiseptic thing available in the fifth century.
Slithering out of my bedcovers, I came and sat beside him, praying he wouldn’t get up and leave. He stayed seated. The cold gap between us widened into a chasm. I had to bridge that gap, and I had to do it fast.
Reaching out, I took his hand in mine and felt a spasm as he stopped himself from jerking away from my touch. A great hollow was growing in my insides, a hollow where once had nestled the warm comfort of our love. “What is it? Tell me.”
He kept his eyes down, looking at my hand in his, his lashes dark against his cheeks, the bruise on his chin already purpling, a bloody scab at its center. He swallowed, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Was this the man I suspected might have committed incest? I pushed the thought away. Now was not the time to bring that up. It would only drive the wedge between us deeper.
“You can tell me.” I kept my voice as gentle as I could, fighting to keep the anxiety and fear out of it. Instinct told me that if I showed fear, all would be lost.
He cleared his throat and raised his eyes. “He said Amhar was his.” He was staring into my eyes. I saw his own fear, his hope that this wasn’t true, his uncertainty that I was still truly his. I saw love dying.
What to say? I’d been held prisoner in Melwas’s fortress for several days, and nine months later I’d produced a little dark-haired baby. The fact that both Arthur and Melwas were dark-haired was no help at all. A picture of Medraut leapt into my head, and it was on the tip of my tongue to leap into the attack and ask him if Medraut was his son. Luckily for me, common sense won.
“It’s a lie.” It was all I could think of to say. The bare truth. A part of me was screaming out my anger that he thought I could have deceived him this way.
I could see his face clearly now, the planes lit by the warm glow of the brazier, throwing shadows across his skin that gave him the look of a man sculpted in bronze. I’d have called that statueMiseryif I’d been the sculptor.
I put my other hand on his as well. “I would never lie to you.”
“I know.” He was still staring into my eyes, perhaps watching for a sign that I was indeed lying, or searching for the truth. How hard would it be for him to believe me now Melwas had set that doubt in his head?
I tightened my grip on his hand. “I know you know,” I said, trying to worm my way inside his head. “And I know you doubt. Why wouldn’t you if he said that?” I paused. “He did it to get to you from beyond the grave.” Words tumbled into my head. “He had no other way left to win. He hated you. He wanted to leave you with that doubt in your mind. He wanted to destroy us, bit by bit.”
Tears sparkled in the corners of his eyes, and he dropped his gaze again as though he didn’t want me to see his weakness.
I wanted to kiss away his sorrow, but instinct warned me not to. Slowly, he turned his hand over beneath mine and let our fingers entwine themselves; an intimate gesture that locked us together.
My heart began to rise from where it had been residing in my boots since Melwas’s death.
He cleared his throat, but he didn’t look up. “He never touched you? Not even once?” There was pleading in his voice. I could sense he wanted to believe me. He ached to believe me, but Melwas had planted that nagging seed of doubt and watered it well. And it didn’t help that it was nine months after my kidnapping that Amhar had been born. I must have already been just pregnant when Melwas had me kidnapped. But how was Arthur to know that? It was my word against a dead man’s. How could I ever win?
In answer, I shook my head. “I think he wanted to take me for his own, but he was afraid.” I remembered the moment I’d been brought before him, the awful moment I’d thought he’d force himself on me, when he declared that having seen me, he’d like to keep me for himself. Inspiration had come over me then, words of bravado had slipped from my lips. Could I find the same bravery now?
