Page 100 of The Road to Avalon
He put a reassuring hand on mine. Blood darkened his nails and stained his skin. Not his own blood. “We’ll be at the marshes soon, but we can’t start into them without a guide. It’s too dangerous. I’ve sent a rider on ahead. We’re going to have to wait for him.”
That did nothing to make me feel better.
We must have been three miles from the Lake Village when our guide arrived, riding fast with the man Bedwyr had sent to find him.
A guide I knew. Con’s long legs dangled down below his horse’s girth as he rode bareback on a small, hairy garron, his thatch of hair standing up around his head in spiky curls.
The wagon had ground to a halt, so I got to my feet, shaky with lack of sleep and food, and with the relentless fear that we’d be too late to save Arthur.
“Milady.” Con bowed as best he could from his pony’s back, his eyes going to the blanket-swathed body in the bed of the wagon. “What is it you wants me to do?”
“Quickly,” I said, one hand on the back of the wagon seat for support. “The king is wounded. There’s no time to lose. Lead us through the marshes. His life depends on you.”
Without a word, he set his jaw in determination and trotted his pony to the front of our horses, waving us to follow. Our heavy wagon trundled behind him down the faint and narrow track into the marshes, our escort bringing up the rear.
If only we wouldn’t get stuck in the mud. If only the track remained wide enough for a wagon.These thoughts jumbled around in my head as I sat beside Arthur, my hand holding his lifeless one, my fingers on the thready pulse beneath his jaw.
His leg and chest weren’t the only things I had to worry about. Blood had soaked through the bandages Bedwyr had put around his arm and right leg. Blood matted his dark hair from a cut on the side of his face, and his sweaty skin had a more deathly pallor by the minute. I didn’t dare move him in case I jolted his leg bones out of place again and cut off his circulation. Oh God, couldn’t this wagon go any faster?
The silent, oppressive marshes closed in around us. Patches of water shone between stunted trees and bushes, and a heron flew in stately splendor over our heads. Underfoot, the ground grew wetter, the horses’ hooves squelching and kicking up clods of mud. But we’d had a dry summer and autumn, and it wasn’t as wet as it could have been. I hoped. The wagon rumbled on.
Amongst the trees a thin mist began to form. Shreds of it clung like chiffon in skeletal branches or hugged pools of dark water, shrouding the banks of mysterious reedbeds where marsh birds raised their strange, ghostly voices.
Arthur lay still and unmoving on his makeshift stretcher. Was he losing blood somewhere? Bleeding internally from the crashing fall? I had no way of knowing if he had internal injuries and nothing I could do if he had.
A horse can only walk at three or four miles an hour, and it took all of three hours to reach the island of Ynys Witrin. The last bit through the marshes seemed to take forever, with the mist thickening fast as evening drew on, and Con telling us we couldn’t hurry, or we’d risk getting lost and sinking into the soft ground. Once or twice, he stopped us altogether while he sounded out the ground, and I sat tapping my fingers on the boards of the wagon in frustration.
At last, the tinny clanging of a bell rang out ahead. A bell I knew all too well. The bell calling the monks to another of their interminable prayers. My heart rose, and within minutes, the cart was jolting up onto higher ground and out of the scrubby undergrowth, the mist thinning as we left the marshes behind. The reedbeds fell away, and in front of us opened the vista of the stubble fields around the abbey, still dotted with sun-bleached stooks of wheat and barley.
The driver turned his horses toward the abbey buildings.
I leaned forward and caught his arm. “No. Not there. The Tor.”
“What?” Bedwyr blurted out. “Why not the abbey? I thought we were going there for their healer?”
Cei stared, and Llawfrodedd twisted in the driving seat to look over his shoulder at me.
“What d’you mean?” Cei asked.
“I mean ‘no’,” I said. “That’snotwhere we’re going.”
Bedwyr touched my arm. “But I thought you said…?”
“Inever said the abbey.Yousaid that. I didn’t say we were going there. You justassumedwe were.”
“But why the Tor?” Bedwyr asked, looking at me as though I were mad. Maybe I was.
The abbey bell stopped ringing.
Cei nodded. “Yes, why the Tor?”
Llawfrodedd remained silent, staring.
The driver peered over his shoulder as well. “Make yer minds up or his lordship’ll be dead.”
“It’s the only way to save him,” I said. “Believe me when I tell you, I know what I’m doing.” I nodded to the driver. “I’m the Queen, and it’s me you’ll obey. Take us to the Tor. As far up it as you can get.”
The driver turned to face the front and clicked at his horses again. Heads down into their harness, they took the strain and moved off.
