Page 60 of The Quest for Excalibur
A shiver coursed through my body. I returned his smile. “Going to show me your sword, soldier?”
He chuckled and his hand went to the laces on his braccae. “I was thinking of doing just that.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and batted his hand away from his laces. “I think I might undo these for you.”
He lay back again while I loosened the laces, the bulge in his braccae telling me how ready he was for this, watching, but not touching, his eyes undressing me. Shivers coursed up and down my body and a delicious ache settled in my groin. I slid my hands inside his braccae and took hold of his arousal.
A gasp escaped his lips and he arched his back for a moment.
With a smile that might have been wicked, I released him and moved down the bed to pull his boots off. His feet were bare, and freshly washed. I lowered my mouth and sucked his big toe for a moment, letting him picture what else I might do later. Another gasp that turned into a groan, his whole body stiffening under the touch of my lips and tongue.
“You’re in the wrong place,” he whispered.
I laughed. “And you’re wearing too many clothes.” I gave his braccae a tug. “I need to get these off you.”
He wriggled out of them as I pulled, and in a moment his shirt joined them on the floor by the bed. Then he sat up and reached for me and I went to him.
He tugged at my linen shirt. “I don’t know why you bothered to put this on. You aren’t going to need it tonight. You’re sleeping with a man who has the sword of an emperor.”
I glanced down at his arousal. “So I can see. But it all depends on whether you can use it like an emperor, doesn’t it?”
He pulled me closer, our bellies pressed together. “Want to find out?”
Silly question. I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Summer became along, golden autumn, still with no raids from either the Saxons in the east or the Irish in the west. Instead of instilling in me a feeling of security, though, it generated an uncomfortable sense of foreboding, as though everything and everyone were holding their concerted breaths and waiting for something bad to happen.
No further news came of Cadwy making use of his extra weapons, and Arthur steadfastly refused to believe he might have gone back on his word. “We might not like each other,” he said, vastly underestimating the animosity between them, “but if he’s given his word, then I have to believe he won’t go back on it.”
Hmmm.
Merlin agreed with me. “I don’t know why Arthur persists in trying to find something good in that man,” he muttered to me one afternoon while we were watching the boys riding at a target on the practice grounds. Amhar had already fallen off twice and was red in the face with fury.
“People are never all one thing,” I said, wondering why I was arguing for Cadwy for once, but remembering his tears when he’d discovered how he’d inadvertently poisoned the old woman who’d been his nurse, all those years ago. “I don’t believe anyone can be bad through and through. But I don’t believe Cadwy’s changed his spots, either.”
Merlin raised his eyebrows. “His spots?”
“A saying from my time. It means that once you’re one way, you’re unlikely to ever change.” Would he have known what a leopard was? Maybe, but I wasn’t going to get into a zoological discussion right now.
“What doyoubelieve?” Merlin asked, narrowing his eyes against the low sun. “Do you think he meant what he said when he swore allegiance to Arthur?”
I screwed up my mouth and sighed. “I think he did. He’s not stupid. He’s seen how close the Irish came to Viroconium that time. He must know that if he doesn’t support Arthur– or rather his position as High King– he’ll lay the center of Britain open to attack. And that means Viroconium. I really do think he’s still holding to his promise.”
Merlin snorted in a way that indicated he wasn’t so sure.
I returned my gaze to where Amhar was now back on Saeth and preparing to charge the target once more. You had to be quick when you hit it, or the weighted sack would swing round and knock you off your horse. He set his heels to Saeth’s sides, and galloped toward the round wooden target. Bam. Off he went, landing spreadeagled in the dirt. Not fast enough… again.
*
Early in theevening about a week after my conversation with Merlin, one of our young warriors came racing up from the fortress wall-walk toward the Hall.
From my position relaxing on a stool under the porch’s overhanging thatch, I watched his rapid progress in curiosity. Arthur, seated next to me polishing Excalibur’s new, red-leather scabbard, stopped what he was doing and stared down the road as the young man drew nearer.
Archfedd, who’d been sitting cross-legged at her father’s feet, stopped rubbing grease into her winter boots and stared as well. “Who’s that coming?” she asked, her high, piping voice carrying through the still warm air.
I peered through the gloaming as the young man approached. “It looks like Mabon.” My heart gave a little lurch, and my stomach knotted. Whenever someone was in haste, particularly a warrior, it never seemed to bode well.
