Page 12 of The Road to Avalon
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Merlin said.
I chewed my lip for a few seconds to gain time and gather my thoughts. If I told Merlin how Medraut had behaved to me, he might feel it his duty to tell Arthur, and that might lead to enmity between them which in turn might set them firmly on the road to Camlann. But I still wasn’t certain Medraut had done anything that warranted this deep feeling of suspicion.
“It’s nothing,” I said, taking the plunge. “On the day of the Council I went out for a ride. Medraut was lying in wait as though he knew I’d be going that way. Before I could stop him, he told my groom to go back.” I frowned. “He didn’t reallydoanything. But… he made me feel… uncomfortable… and dirty. He seemed fascinated with my ring. And he said I was pretty…”
Merlin smiled, a small, tight smile. “He wasn’t lying.”
I shook my head. “It was thewayhe said it. It gave me the creeps. He rode his horse so close to mine his knee kept touching my leg. It… it was horrible. Like I was being defiled. Touched by something wicked.”
The smile vanished. “I thought I was the one with the Sight.”
“It wasn’t anything like that. It was just the feeling he gave me. When I got home, all I wanted to do was take a bath and wash that feeling off, but it wouldn’t go.” I met his gaze. “It was the way he looked at me– as though he could see right through my clothes. As though heknewwhat I looked like naked. Ugh– that’s made me shiver all over again. Can we not talk about this? I’ll need another bath.” I managed a small chuckle.
Merlin gave me a long, hard look.
*
Evening was rapidlyfalling when we at last wound our way up the cobbled road to Din Cadan. A gladness to be back home swept over me, and, having handed Enfys’s reins to a groom, I hurried up the hill to the Hall.
I found Archfedd inside, helping Coventina and Reaghan organize our servants for a homecoming feast. Heads turned as I entered, and work ground to a halt. Even the boy in charge of the hearth stopped turning the spit.
For a moment no one moved, then Archfedd ran down the hall and threw herself into my arms with the sort of enthusiasm I’d have expected had I been gone several months instead of a few weeks.
“Mami!” She’d never quite abandoned what she’d called me as a small child.
I enfolded her in my arms, breathing in the scent of the lavender on her clothes and the sweet freshness of our hilltop home in her hair. So different from the stink of the city that had managed to linger in my nostrils for most of our journey home.
She wriggled free and planted a kiss on each of my cheeks. “You’ve been gone too long. I’ve missed you. We all have.” She waved an airy hand at the spit boy, who’d remembered his duties and was turning the carcass of the deer again. “We’ve venison for dinner.” The smell of the cooking meat filled the air, mixed with the other heady scents of home– dusty reeds, dogs, stale food and acrid smoke. A mix I’d come to love.
I held her at arm’s length, taking in my beautiful daughter as if I’d never seen her before. At fifteen she was almost a woman grown, and had swapped the gangly chubbiness of childhood for the gentle curves of femininity. Her long hair, as bright a chestnut as mine, hung down her back in a single thick braid, and wispy tendrils curled about her oval face. She’d inherited my hazel eyes along with my hair, and had her father’s long straight nose. Above a pointed chin, a full-lipped mouth smiled to reveal nearly perfect teeth.
“I swear you’ve grown more beautiful in my absence,” I said, unable to wipe the grin from my face. “And Reaghan, too. Come here and kiss your aunt.”
Reaghan, a good year older than Archfedd, wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing and hurried over. She resembled her mother, Coventina, a little too much to ever be classified as pretty, but nevertheless she’d turned into a striking young woman. Her bright auburn hair framed a pale, freckled face, and her eyes were a wide and luminous blue, like Cei’s. Some young man was going to drown in them one day.
She kissed me on the cheek, and I turned to her mother, my best friend. I was about to hold my arms out to her when the doors of the Hall banged open again behind me.
Expecting it to be Arthur, I spun around, and so did everyone else.
It wasn’t.
Medraut stood on the threshold, gazing around himself… an acquisitive, even possessive look on his face, almost as though he owned what he surveyed, or intended to. Maybe I was the only one who saw that, though. Resentment rose in me, and by my side my fists balled. Had he abandoned everyone else at the stables to get here first? Ahead of Arthur?
We couldn’t help but become the audience he so clearly wanted for his return. He set his hands on his hips, feet apart as though on the deck of one of his father’s ships, and surveyed each one of us in turn, his eyes appraising and sharp. As a king would survey his people. And like fools, we stood there mute, letting him do it, too surprised to protest.
It didn’t take him long. After a moment he stepped further into the Hall, and the doors banged shut behind him.
None of us said a word. Probably I should have introduced him, but the thought that he might go unrecognized didn’t occur to me.
“Well,” he said, letting that one word hang in the air. “These little beauties must be my cousins. Now, which one is which? Reaghan was the redhead, if I recall, sothis…” he paused as his attention fixed on my daughter. “Thismust be Archfedd.” He paused again, giving her a second look up and down, just the way he’d looked at me on our ride. Every nerve in my body wanted to leap down the Hall and knock him down. With a large club.
Archfedd fidgeted under his intense gaze, color rising to her cheeks. He had an unnervingly hard stare that made its subject want to flinch and run away.
Coventina found her voice first. “Is that little Medraut come back to us?” She bustled forward, stepping neatly between him and Archfedd, as always with a hitch to her gait caused by the nerve damage she’d sustained at Reaghan’s birth. “Welcome home, my boy. Welcome home.” She gave him a hug, and, after a moment’s pause, he hugged her in return, his predatory gaze fixed on Archfedd over her shoulder.
Coventina released him and took a step back to study him through narrowed eyes. Archfedd took the opportunity to edge closer to me, which wasn’t like her at all. Her hand slipped into mine as though she felt she needed my support. I squeezed it.
“Goodness me,” Coventina said to Medraut, a wide smile on her homely face. “Who’d’ve thought you’d have grown sobig. You’re like your father in that, indeed you are. You might have the Pendragon coloring, but I see Theodoricandyour grandfather in you, my lad.”
