Page 38 of The Quest for Excalibur
I kicked off my boots and slipped out of my braccae. I’d discarded my tunic along with my hot mail shirt as soon as we’d arrived, in preference for my thinner undershirt, but even that was hot and sticky. However, no way was I getting naked in a tent surrounded by soldiers. I lay down on top of my bed roll and watched Arthur stripping off. He seemed to have no qualms about nakedness, but then, he was a man.
He lay down on his side, facing me, his face just a shadow.
Outside someone was singing a mournful song– one I knew– the sad ballad of Gwawl, last of the giants, and how he’d wandered the world searching for his people. The melancholy of it seemed to fit the way I felt about Dinas Brent and its ghostly inheritance.
I shuffled closer to Arthur and he lifted an arm so I could snuggle against him. He smelled of sweat, horses and woodsmoke. I draped my arm across his body.
His chest rose as he inhaled deeply. “Been a while since we camped out under the stars like this.”
My cheek pressed against his chest, the drum of his heart loud in my ear. “It has.” I paused. “But do we need to stay so long? I know it’s summer and the weather is good, but I’d rather be at home with the children.” Reluctance to put into words how I felt about the ghosts I suspected clung on here prevented me from being honest with him.
He pulled me closer, and his free hand slid up under my loose shirt, the fingertips grazing my skin and sending shivers through my body, despite my apprehension. “Just a few days, to get them started. I was rather looking forward to some physical work. It’s a long time since I’ve built anything.” His fingers reached my breasts.
Exactly what physical work did he have in mind right now?
“We’ve brought them men, so they should have no trouble accomplishing the work before winter sets in,” I whispered, hooking my leg over his and sliding my hand down his belly. “Do you really want to stay here so long when we could be at home in our own bed… indulging in more of… this?”
His hand cupped one of my breasts and his head turned to mine, moving closer. “What’s to stop us indulging right now?” His voice had lowered, the huskiness in it betraying the lust snaking through his body. My hand discovered him primed and ready.
I let my lips brush his. “Forty men asleep only yards away. Or maybe forty men who arenotasleep only yards away. Listening.”
He snorted. “What do I care?”
I removed my hand. “You might not, but I do.” I kissed him, lightly this time, determined to have my way. “I’ll not be the entertainment for the evening, not even for you.” Disentangling myself from his embrace, I rolled away and turned my back on him.
*
A three-quarter moonshone in through the entrance to our tent, low in the sky, half hidden behind a cloud. Somewhere, outside in the wide beyond, a vixen called, wild and abandoned and primal. Was that what had wakened me?
The moonlight spilling through the entrance showed me Arthur sleeping on his back, one arm flung up over his head, the other across his naked belly. He’d pulled a blanket up to cover his legs but a bare foot protruded.
The fox called again. Wide awake now, the need for a pee settled in my groin, more insistent by the moment. I’d have to get up and find somewhere private to relieve myself.
Taking care not to disturb Arthur, I crawled out of the tent and stood up, stretching my aching body. Why was it every time I slept on the ground, I chose the bumpiest bit possible?
On the far side of our tent, the embers of the fire glowed faintly red, and the humps of sleeping soldiers showed like rows of chrysalises, every man wrapped in his own cocoon. An owl swooped on silent wings, and over on the western rampart I spotted the silhouette of the man chosen to keep the night’s watch.
Now the need to pee was reaching crisis point, so, avoiding the lookout, I headed toward the entrance on bare feet, intent on using the encircling bank to shelter me as I peed. We’d set up our camp nearer the entrance than the western bank so it wasn’t far. I slipped through the wide gap in the rampart and squatted down to do what needed to be done.
Once finished, and much more comfortable, I got to my feet, but something stopped me from hastening back to the tent. The marshes lay spread out before me in the moonlight, stretching as far as the dark rise of the distant Mendip hills. A few lights showed, scattered across the darkness, and here and there the waters glimmered with the moon’s soft reflection.
Beautiful.
The owl swept over me again, screeching its night-time call, eery and lonely and somehow other-worldly.
Standing here where her family had died, how could I not think of poor, bereaved Bretta? Where had Melwas’s men thrown those children into the marshes? Had they dragged them down this very track, either alive and struggling or stiff and dead? The thought of someone doing that to my children brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. Tears for children I’d never met, but for whom I felt responsible.
I’d never been a particularly religious person, but standing in the moonlit dark, alone on the hillside, I muttered a heartfelt prayer that all these children should find peace and not be tied here, haunting their marshy graveyard.
I must have stood there a while, because in the east the sky began to lighten, staining the clouds pink and gold, and a pre-dawn chill descended, dew settling on the grass and on my shirt. Cold seeped up my legs from my bare feet, and a shiver brought me to myself. On frozen feet I headed back to the tent.
Chapter Nineteen
When we left,three days later, Medraut and his friends showed no regrets at being abandoned at Dinas Brent, despite the primitive living situation. Boys of that age, in fact warriors of any age, don’t care about such things as baths and proper toilets. Only fighting seems to matter to them.
Morfran, beaming with pride at his first proper command, bade us farewell just outside the gateway. “I’ll be as hard on them as you would be, Milord,” he promised, standing by Arthur’s stirrup. “They’ll not have a spare moment for getting into trouble.”
This last was because I’d passed onto him what I’d overheard the boys saying about the girls in the farm settlements. Haha. Good luck to them if they tried to get down there for some illicit pleasure. Not that I thought their boasting had been any more than youthful showing off to one another.
