Page 29 of The Road to Avalon
I bit my lip.
“She said you could explain them to me.”
Oh, how I wished myself anywhere but here. How I wished we’d left Archfedd with her brothers at Din Cadan and that she’d never had to meet her grandmother with her witchy tricks– the tricks she’d passed on to Morgana. Tricks she seemed to think Archfedd, also, might possess.
I couldn’t help it, though. “What did you see?” I asked.
Heat rose to Archfedd’s cheeks, coloring them pinker than the wind had done. “I– I saw myself.” She paused. “On athrone.” She sounded incredulous.
Not without reason. I stared. Of all the things I’d feared she’d say, this had not been one of them. “On athrone?”
She nodded. “With a crown on my head.” She swallowed. “Mami, it wasyourcrown.”
For a moment the world spun around me, and if I hadn’t been seated already, I might have fallen. My daughter– a queen. Why not? Not unexpected that the daughter of the High King would make a good match. But inmycrown? Something different altogether. If she were wearing that, then where was I in her vision?
Schooling my face to hide my fear, I squeezed her hand. “And were you old?” I asked, clutching at straws.
She shook her head. “No. I looked just as I look right now. Young. No different to the girl I see in my copper mirror every morning.”
What did this mean? A million possibilities tumbled inside my head, but on the outside, I fought a battle to hide the terror washing over me. If Archfedd sat on a throne in my crown, then was itmythrone, as well? Her father’s throne? And where were her brothers?
I forced a laugh. “Just your fanciful imagination,” I said, with careful determination. “Every girl likes to see themselves raised up. And you have reason to expect that more than most– for one day soon, when you marry, you’ll likely be a queen yourself.”
Her smooth brow furrowed. “But why inyourcrown, Mami? Why was I wearing your crown?”
I drew a steadying breath. “Because you’ve seen no other crown but that one, of course. So in your imagination you placed it on your own head. What could be simpler than that?” I squeezed her hand again. “Your grandmother is an old lady who likes to frighten people. She thinks she has powers above those of other women, but she doesn’t. Put an impressionable girl in a dark room with a black mirror and a candle and she’ll see anything. Her imagination puts it inside her head.” I forced a smile. “Ofcourseyou saw something in the mirror– I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t.”
Her troubled eyes cleared. “Yes. You’re right. It was just a trick of my imagination. I won’t let her do that with me again.”
I had the distinct impression I hadn’t really convinced her.
*
We rode homethe next day, leaving Eigr to her solitary clifftop existence.
“I need to visit her more often than I do,” Cei said, twisting in his saddle to stare back down the hill toward the fortress gates. Eigr wasn’t waiting there to wave us off, of course, but I couldn’t miss the wistfulness in his voice. Nor the worry. No doubt existed in my mind that Cei loved his mother.
“She does seem old, all of a sudden,” Arthur said with unusual insight for him.
Merlin nodded. “It comes to all men.”
Not him, though. When I’d first met him, he’d appeared to be a few years older than Cei and Arthur, but now, if anything, he seemed younger. Whatever magic he had, he must have somehow harnessed it to hang onto his youth. Good for him. If I possessed his powers, I’d have done the same. No one really wants to grow old. Only now I thought about it, Idid. I longed for Arthur and me to grow old together. Very old. Centenarians if possible. I didn’t care if we became frail and doddery, nor if we lost our teeth and hair.
I just wanted Arthur to live long enough to be old.
We took our time on our journey, sleeping out under the stars or staying overnight at small ramshackle villas, the inhabitants still clinging doggedly to the ways of their Roman forebears, at small farms or in the ghost-ridden ruins of old buildings. The weather held, and by the time we reached Din Cadan, all the fields around our hill stood cleared of the hay crop.
Hayricks thatched against the weather stood beside every barn and dotted the fields, fenced off from the sheep and cattle now grazing the stubble and manuring the ground. Inside the fortress walls, sweet-smelling ricks dotted every spare corner. Unwise to have them all in one place, in case of fire. Spread out like this, if one burnt, the others would be safe, and our animals wouldn’t go short of winter fodder.
Glad to be home, we left our horses in the stables and walked up the road to the Great Hall, my heart leaping at the thought of seeing my son and stepson again.
Chapter Fourteen
Arthur embraced aserious-faced Llacheu in the Great Hall. “Come through to our chamber and tell me how it goes,” he said, throwing an arm around his son’s broad shoulders. “I bring sad news about Drustans, but that will have to wait. I need to know how you’ve managed in my absence.”
I followed them through the door into our chamber, and we all sat at our small round table. Maia brought a flagon of wine and filled three goblets. “Shall I fetch bread and cheese and cold meat?” she asked, hovering just behind Arthur’s chair.
He shook his head. “You may go. We have business to discuss.”
