Page 23 of The Quest for Excalibur
She frowned. “Can’t this wait until the morning?”
I shook my head, gripping the bedcovers with my other hand. “No. It can’t. It’s a very special ring. I won’t be able to sleep without it.” I hoped my eyes were pleading.
She sighed and plodded back to the nurses’ station. Crossing my fingers and holding my breath, I watched her as she talked to a second nurse. They bent over something I couldn’t see– perhaps a drawer. I waited, heart thudding.
The first nurse came plodding back. “What does this ring of yours look like, then?”
She had something in her hand, in a small plastic bag.
“Gold, with a dragon embossed on it.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Unusual. That’s why I asked you. Here.” She held out the bag. “Apparently, they took it off you in the ambulance in case your fingers swelled. We had it locked safely in a drawer. I’m not sure you should be putting it back on just yet though– there could still be swelling.”
I managed a smile, taking the bag with trembling fingers. Without a second look, she walked away, and I pried open the ziplock on the bag and took out my ring. For a moment I let it lay on my palm, savoring the warmth of the gold, before slipping it back into place on my not-at-all swollen finger. With a deep possessive sigh, I wrapped my other hand around it and held both hands tight against my chest.
Enough of that. Urgency pressed in on me. Back to the map on my phone.
I found the Tor. My finger, no longer shaking, but determined, traced the road I’d have to take, and I committed to memory the turns and junctions. Country lanes for the most part, which would most likely be narrow and unlit at night. I used the app to estimate the distance. A little over a mile and a half. I could do that, even battered and bruised. Iwasa warrior queen, after all. And it had to be tonight, before time stretched out and separated me from my home and my loved ones forever.
I put the phone on silent.
The lights went out at nine, except the one by the nurses’ station– enough to faintly illuminate the side-ward I was in.
The clock hands crept slowly round.
At half past nine, when the one nurse on duty, the grumpy red head, went off to answer someone’s call for help, I slipped out of bed. Making sure my delightful, open-at-the-back hospital gown was covering my backside, I retrieved my coat and boots, and set off to find the toilets.
Odd that the thing that struck me most forcibly would turn out to be the toilets. Lit glaringly, with shining porcelain basins all white and clean and actually flushing. I stopped on the threshold to stare, wide-eyed, as though I’d never seen a toilet before. A stark comparison with the bucket in the corner of my chamber at Din Cadan. Waste not, want not. I used the facilities and flushed with a strange sort of pleasure. In fact, I flushed twice, the second time for pure fun.
Comfortable now, I stepped out into the corridor, still carrying my coat and boots. Difficult to make an escape dressed in a flappy hospital gown. I needed more substantial clothing.
Opposite the toilets stood a door marked Staff Only. Worth a look.
The staff changing room. Down the center ran a rack with back-to-back bench seats and a row of high coat pegs. I sat down for a moment, legs weak, and looked about. A row of lockers– all locked, of course. They’d store their own clothes in them while they worked. Impossible to get into, but in a corner stood a sizeable bin– for dirty washing. Getting up, I padded over and lifted the lid. Used scrubs. Not really dirty– just not possible to wear twice in case of infection.
Beggars can’t be choosersetc. I had no qualms about wearing someone else’s dirty washing.
I rummaged through and found a set that fitted. In went my flappy, bum-revealing hospital gown and on went the scrubs. Much better.
Now what? I touched my head. I’d have to get rid of this bandage. A dead giveaway that I wasn’t a nurse. In front of the small wall mirror, I carefully unwound the bandage. Not so bad. A jagged, neatly stitched cut across a swelling on my forehead. A hefty bump on the back of my head. A half-closed black eye and bruised cheek on the same side. Grazes. I’d live. I’d seen far worse. Odd to see my own face accurately reflected back at me after so long without a decent mirror. Did I look older? No way of telling in this state. No gray hairs yet though.
I bent and pulled on my boots, double knotting the laces. My coat had dried mud on it from my fall down the hill twelve years ago… no, this morning… so I brushed it off. The same coat I’d abandoned in Din Cadan. For a moment I held it in front of myself, staring, trying to work out how it could be in two places at once, and failing. Then I slipped it on over the scrubs and went to the door.
The corridor stretched away in both directions, empty. I stepped out as if I had every right to be doing so, and set off for the exit. No one looked at me as the sliding doors in reception opened, and I escaped into the night, unchallenged.
Chapter Twelve
Cold night airhit me like a wall, almost taking my breath away after the warmth of the hospital and making me wish for something more substantial than scrubs. I stood on the steps under the overhang, trying to match the map in my head with the reality in front of me. How much easier would navigating the open countryside of the Dark Ages have been? Although the marshes around Ynys Witrin might have covered this particular spot.
I glanced at the parked cars and turned up my nose. A horse would have been handy.
The lights in the car park showed me the way to the road. Now turn left.
I half-walked, half-ran along the pavement, trying not to draw attention. At least the streetlights helped. A couple of cars passed me, and when they’d gone, I crossed the road to where the pavement continued.
The fear that someone would discover my absence plagued me, and I couldn’t help but snatch glances over my shoulder as I went, half-expecting to see nurses running down the road in hot pursuit.
No nurses appeared, thank goodness.
