Page 37 of The Road to Avalon
Without a word, he hurried Arthur out into the Hall, and as the door banged closed behind them, I scrambled out of bed and grabbed my clothes from the top of the chest where I’d left them folded neatly the night before. As it was summer, all I had to do was pull on my knee-length linen tunic and sandals then run after the men.
The hall doors had just banged shut behind them, so I sprinted down the aisle and out into pale, early-morning sunshine. Two of the wall guards stood there, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, their faces as pale as Merlin’s, their eyes frightened. What was going on?
“This way.” Merlin turned down one of the narrow alleys that ran between the closely packed buildings. Arthur followed, and I hurried after them. The two guards trailed behind me, their footsteps leaden.
We passed between the houses and reached the barns that bordered the horse pens. The scant remains of a thin mist hung in the air, not quite burned off by the early morning sun. On our left stood an empty shed, on our right a large midden, where the nearby householders threw their waste, and where dung from the animal sheds ended up. Steam and the smell of rotting refuse rose from it in the morning chill.
Sprawled across it lay a body, the limbs akimbo like those of a broken doll, head thrown so far back as to make the face invisible. The throat had been cut from ear to ear, and blood darkened the front of both tunic and undershirt. Already a swarm of flies buzzed around it, settling to lay their eggs.
I stopped dead. Those tasseled boots.
Arthur’s face had blanched.
No. It couldn’t be. I ran forward, scrabbling at the rotting vegetables and manure, but the body was high up toward the back and out of reach. My eyes fixed on that great gaping maw of a slash across a white throat.
One of the guards pulled me back. “No, milady. Don’t.” He choked on the words.
Merlin bowed his head.
Running footsteps sounded behind us. Cei slithered to a halt. “What is it? What’s happened?” He, like Arthur, hadn’t taken time to put a tunic on.
“It’s Llacheu,” Merlin said, turning anguished eyes to Cei.
His name. As Merlin said it, realization hit me so hard I staggered backwards against my guard, my hands to my mouth, nausea rising in a tidal wave. I had nothing to throw up but bile, bitter in my mouth as his name on Merlin’s lips. The guard put his arms around me for support, but I shook him off.
“No.” Cei shook his head. “It can’t be. It isn’t. No.”
Bending over, I leaned against the barn wall and retched. No. This couldn’t be true. I was in a nightmare. Not Llacheu. Not my beloved stepson. Not that vital, handsome young man, so kind, so loving, so generous, and so brave. Slaughtered like an animal and thrown onto the rubbish tip. This couldn’t be.
“Get him down,” Arthur said, his voice so quiet I hardly heard him. “We need to take him to the Hall.” He turned away, and for a moment leaned against the barn wall near me, his chest heaving.
I straightened up, spitting the taste of bile from my mouth.
He turned his head and our eyes met.
I’d not seen such anguish since the death of Rhiwallon. I reached out a hand, but he straightened, his face set in a hard mask, and I let my hand drop.
He cleared his throat. “I want him down from there. Now.”
The two guards clambered up onto the top of the midden, their bodies obscuring my view. As though drawn by a powerful magnet, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Merlin caught my shoulder, his fingers rough and firm. “Come away. Let them get him down. You shouldn’t watch.”
I resisted, anger welling. “Someone should watch. We owe him that, surely?”
“I will,” Cei said. “I’ll stay with Arthur. You shouldn’t see this, Gwen. Go with Merlin.” His blue eyes had filled with tears. “Go on.”
Merlin clamped a strong arm around my shoulders and forcefully walked me back up the alley toward the Great Hall, my reluctant feet dragging in the dirt. A cockerel crowed on a rooftop, heralding a day Llacheu would never see. Voices came from up ahead. Normal voices on a day that would not be normal. A world that would never be normal again.
Outside the Hall, the fortress was coming to life, but somehow word must have got around, and people were standing about in groups, muttering together. So not normal after all. No, never normal. This was the day my heart broke.
The people stared as Merlin hurried me past them and into the Hall, his arm tight around my shoulders, holding me close. I kept my eyes down, afraid I’d trip and fall. As if that would have mattered. As if anything mattered now.
The doors closed behind us and the warm darkness that enfolded me somehow managed to feel comforting and homely, as though nothing bad had gone on outside its walls. As though nothing in here could be harmed. What a lie that was.
“Into your chamber,” Merlin said, hurrying me across the reed-strewn floor. “Let them bring the body in and lay it out here in the Hall. You don’t need to see that.”
He pushed open the door and we went inside. It banged shut behind us, like a death knell.
