Page 34 of The Quest for Excalibur
“Because you think I’m better than the others?” he asked, standing squarely in front of Arthur by the fire in the Hall. I’d accompanied my husband purely to see what our nephew’s reaction would be.
Arthur smiled. “More mature is how I’d put it. Ready for something new. And you’re my nephew. The other boys will get there too, though, have no fear. They just need more time than you do.”
A smile that could only have been described as sly slid over Medraut’s face. At twelve he already stood as tall as me, but whereas Llacheu had been willow slim at that age, Medraut had all the promise of ending up looking like his hefty uncle Cadwy. His voice had already lowered, and acne had begun to appear on his face. Whereas Amhar still remained a little boy, Medraut stood on the threshold of manhood already.
“Will I be in charge ofmen?”
“Not for the foreseeable future,” Arthur said. “You may be big, and the nephew of the king, but that won’t replace experience. You need to be a follower before you can become a leader. I’m sending three of your friends with you. The four of you will work together under the fort’s commander, and he’ll report back to me.”
“Where am I going?” Medraut asked, a surly frown beginning to form. Clearly, he thought he ought to be in charge of wherever we were sending him.
“Dinas Brent.” Arthur stared down at him, a frown on his face as well. “A small and insignificant fortress on our western coast, close to the sea. It’s been abandoned now for some time, but I’m sending a contingent of warriors and workmen to reinstate it.”
He paused. Was he thinking about how it had come to be so abandoned? “At present all it houses is a beacon fire to give us advance warning of raiders coming up the Sabrina Sea. A squadron of men based there in a proper fort will give us added protection. You will be amongst them.”
Dinas Brent was where the traitor Melwas had been based. I shivered. He’d kidnapped me before Amhar was born, and I’d feared I’d never escape his clutches with my nose intact, or even alive. Abbot Jerome had brokered my release in return for Arthur’s pledge not to punish Melwas and his men. When later he’d taken the poor beggar children of Caer Baddan and thrown the ones he didn’t want, the ones he considered not useful, into the marshes around his hilltop fortress, Arthur had gleefully punished him for that, instead. But we’d all known what he’d really been punishing him for.
Even here, in Din Cadan, the people told stories of the haunted marshes around Dinas Brent, where you could hear the drowned children crying at night, and, if you were unlucky, see their pale, sad faces beneath the waters. A shiver of foreboding swept over me at the thought that we were sending Medraut to the former den of such a wicked man.
“May I go now, to tell my friends?” Medraut asked, impatience in his voice. This was news to be shared and boasted about.
Arthur nodded. “Choose three to take with you.”
And Medraut was gone.
I turned back to Arthur. “You’re refortifyingDinas Brent?”
He sat down on one of the trestle tables, his feet on the bench seat. “Needs must. It’s been more than eleven years. I can’t go on leaving such a pivotal position unoccupied.”
“Yes, but you know what the people say about it.”
He frowned. “Idle gossip. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
I shivered again. “I’d like to say I don’t, but I’ve learned how foolish it is to dismiss things I know nothing about. I didn’t believe in magic until I came here. And yet somehow this ring,” I held up my hand to show him where the ring sat on my finger. “This actual ring transported me here and allowed me to speak your language.That’smagic. So I don’t dismiss things like ghosts out of hand any longer. I’m open to believing things I’d never have believed before.”
He snorted with derision, but it wasn’t an entirely confident snort. “Melwas and his victims are long gone. They can’t harm us now.”
I thought of Bretta’s curse. I’d never told him what she’d said to me.I curse you, Queen of Dumnonia, and I curse your husband and your son. You and yours shall know the loss I feel.
She’d been grieving the loss of her brothers and sisters, slain by Melwas and his men, and I’d just given birth to Amhar. I’d understood her vindictive sorrow. It had been my idea to force Melwas to do something about the poor children of Caer Baddan– but not in the way he’d done it. She’d blamed me for the children’s deaths. Rightly, perhaps.
Back in my old world the curse of a grieving teenager would have been disregarded, but here, in the superstitious Dark Ages, the fear that her words carried weight had never left me. Melwas could indeed still harm us.
I shook my head. “That place is evil. Should we be sending a child there? An impressionable child?” The thought that we were sending not just any child there reared up in my mind, but I couldn’t tell him that. “Isn’t there somewhere else we could send him? Somewhere safer?” And I didn’t mean physically safer.
Arthur shook his head. “I’ve made my mind up. I was sending men to refortify it anyway. Those boys can go with them. Morfran of Linuis will command them. It’ll be a good responsible posting for him, and he’ll take no nonsense from boys. Medraut’s no longer a child. He can work hard there along with the other boys he’ll choose, and the men under Morfran’s command.”
“He’s twelve.” My voice rose in protest. Why was I trying to protect him when I’d just thought about lacing his drink with poison? The vagaries of the human mind.
“Nearly a man.”
“Not in my opinion.”
“He’s as big as some of the much older boys. He’s ready for this.”
I fumed, frustrated that my plan had taken a turn for the worse. “I know. I want him to go. But maybe not to Dinas Brent.” I couldn’t get the fear out of my head that the evil of the place would influence Medraut, that Arthur was sending him somewhere that would mold him into the man I feared him destined to become.
Arthur held up his hand. “Enough. This isn’t open for discussion. I’ve made my decision, and this is what’s going to happen. The matter’s closed.”
