Page 32 of The Quest for Excalibur
“Mami killed a man all by herself,” Archfedd said, flicking her long plait back over her shoulder. “Mami rides into battle like my papa.”
As he had his head turned toward my daughter, I couldn’t miss Llawfrodedd’s toothy smile. “I did hear as she killed a dozen men all by herself.”
Archfedd’s laugh tinkled through the mild air. “Silly. That’s just a fireside story. It was only one. She told me so.”
Llawfrodedd grinned. “Folks do like to think as it were a dozen though. She be the luck of Arthur. They all do know that.”
“You do talk funny.” Archfedd giggled. “Sheisthe luck of Arthur. That’s how you say that.”
“Sheisthe luck of Arthur,” Llawfrodedd repeated, taking care with his enunciation of the words, trying to iron out his rural accent and copy Archfedd’s intonation.
I smiled to myself. Although now nearly fifteen and old enough to be included in the army, the boy’s quiet, gentle nature shone out of him, and he possessed none of the bluster and bravado of some of the others. Perhaps his peasant upbringing had instilled in him an appreciation of what he now had, that boys like Medraut just took for granted.
“That’s better,” my canny daughter said. “And I’ve just had a good idea. If I teach you how to speak properly, then you can teach me how to fight with a sword. Is that a deal?”
I suppressed my laughter. Who was I to stop her? Swordswomanship might well be a skill that would one day come in handy for her, as it had for me. Every girl should be able to defend herself. Maybe I should suggest to Arthur that all girls of the fort were taught alongside their brothers. I chuckled to myself as I pictured his incredulous expression.
“Deal.” Llawfrodedd spat onto his grubby palm then held his hand out.
For a moment Archfedd looked down at his hand in wonder. Then she put her reins into one hand, spat in her own palm, and took it. “Deal.”
I kept a bit of an eye on her swordfighting lessons to begin with, but I needn’t have bothered. Llawfrodedd was a careful teacher. He found her a small wooden practice sword, and used a similar one himself. She was a fast learner.
Her lessons didn’t go unnoticed though.
“I see Archfedd is intent on emulating her mother,” Merlin said to me one afternoon as I strolled along the wall-walk in the warm sun. He’d climbed up the steps near the gate to stride purposefully toward me.
I smiled and nodded. “And surpassing me.”
He hooked his arm through mine. “But she’s not who I came up here to talk to you about.” He steered me around until I was walking back the way I’d come, away from the gatehouse. “I came to talk to you about Medraut.”
My heart sank. I’d seen very little of my nephew lately, with the long days and the training he and the other boys were doing. He and Amhar had taken to eating with the young warriors at the tables at the foot of the Hall. Too grown up by half.
“What about him?” I asked.
The breeze blew Merlin’s long loose hair out behind him. “He seems to be gathering a faction.”
I bit my lip. “I feared as much.”
Overhead, a female sparrowhawk swooped toward a pigeon. A flurry of feathers and she headed toward one of the fenceposts around the horse pens. Her plucking post. Such was nature. And so do boys cease to be the children we’d like to have them stay, and turn into men before our eyes. Unavoidable nature.
Merlin frowned. “I see it when I’m teaching. He has a group of what you or I might call friends, but they’re not quite that. They’re more like his followers. A little afraid of him. Awed into subjection. He’s a big lad, and he has a way with him that inspires obedience if not affection or admiration.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not quite right. They do admire him for his daring, his ruthlessness. But they have no affection for him.”
“He’s only twelve.”
“Old enough and looks older.”
We walked a few more paces to where we wouldn’t be overheard by the guards along the wall-walk. I pulled him to a halt. “And Amhar?”
“In his faction.”
Amhar was such an easily led child. I feared for him if he ever became a king like his father. I feared for him as well because I’d never heard, in any of the legends from my old world, that Arthur had left a living heir. And I feared for him most because of how he’d been thrust together with Medraut.
“Can we break it up?”
Merlin leaned against the parapet wall, eyes screwed up against the sunlight. “We could try.”
I faced him, hands on hips. “Tell me how.”
