Page 46 of The Road to Avalon
“Can’t you find where she is? With your Sight?”
He shook his head, his face miserable and exhausted. “She’s hidden herself from me. It takes great power to do that, and will be tiring her, but nevertheless, she’s done it.” He sighed. “She must really want to remain hidden. I’m certain she’s concealing something.” He shook his head again. “Believe me, I’ve searched for her many times, but I’m like a blind man groping in the dark. All I see is mist. Every time.”
I almost didn’t dare to ask. “Still nothing of Amhar?”
Another shake of the head. “I keep on looking in the hopes her power will wane.” He put his head in his hands. “I feel as though I’ve been castrated. My Sight is a part of me as much as my legs or hands, and she’s stolen it. It’s not just something I do– it has body. It’s a physical part of me. Somehow, she’s found the power to slice it away.”
I chewed my lip, groping for words of comfort and finding none. Urgency pressed in all around me. We had to get his Sight back. We had to find out who killed Llacheu and save Amhar.
“Better get some sleep,” Merlin said. “We’ve a long ride in the morning.”
*
The urge forhaste infected us all, and we were up the next morning before the sun. After a breakfast of the last of the bread given us by the people of Breguoin washed down with our own cider, we set off.
Caer Legeion, or to give it its full title, Caer Legeion gwar Uisc, had once been the site of a legionary fortress, one of only three in Britain. Now, with the legions long gone, it had fallen into a degree of the usual disrepair. The fortress had been abandoned years ago, and the stonework looted for new houses, the filling in of potholes in the roads and the constructing of field walls or reinforcing of the wharfs. What had once been the fort’s vicus, the civilian settlement, had morphed into the town that now huddled on the western banks of a curve of the river Usk.
A muddy foreshore marked where the tide had gone out, leaving a flock of small fishing boats stranded, but with no sign of Theodoric’s fleet being in port.
We’d crossed the river seven miles upstream by a wide, paved ford. With the late afternoon sun in our eyes, we passed through the haunted ruins of the fortress, where perhaps the sad shades of lost legionaries still stood sentry, and made our way to Theodoric’s house, where Morgawse lived, and where we hoped to find Morgana.
As the house of a princess, it was the biggest building in the town and would have been easy to find even if I’d never been there before. Large and square, set around a courtyard as many Roman houses were, it sat just above the high-water mark on the river, with its own docks where Theodoric could tie up his flagship when he was in port and the tide was in. No ship was too large to sit for a while on mudflats, though, and his would be no different.
We halted in the street outside the porticoed door, and Merlin dismounted to rap on the silvered wood. Who knew what lay beyond?
Chapter Twenty
“Is she inside?”I asked Merlin, as we stood in the paved street outside the house. And I didn’t mean Morgawse.
Merlin shrugged, as non-committal as ever, his face drawn and tired, eyes shadowed. “I don’t know. She must be harnessing some strong power, because she’s able to hide not just herself and my daughter from me but Amhar as well. She has them all wrapped in a thick mist that clouds my vision every time I try to find them.”
Bloody woman. But had he the foresight to have hidden himself from her as well? The thought that she might have no idea we were on her doorstep pleased me no end.
The door creaked open on hinges much in need of an oiling, and a wizened old face peeked out at us, eyes screwed up against the dying day’s bright sunshine. “Yes?”
It had been years since I’d visited Theodoric or Morgawse, and I had no idea who this old crone could be, but I stepped forward with resolution, determined to get past Morgana’s gatekeeper. “Queen Guinevere, wife of the High King, to see your lady,” I announced with every bit of imperial dignity I possessed. “Now, let us inside immediately.”
The old woman sucked her shrunken lips in over her gums. “I has me orders not to let no one in,” she mumbled, her words made difficult to understand due to her total lack of teeth.
“Nonsense,” Merlin said, putting his hand on the door and pushing it wider open. “That order doesn’t mean us. Your lady is my Queen’s sister.” He put his foot in the gap.
I glanced over my shoulder at my men. “Llawfrodedd, you come with us. The rest of you, take care of our horses. There are stables just up the street to the left, attached to this house.” I caught Archfedd’s hand. “You should come, too.”
The old doorkeeper made a feeble attempt to push the door closed on Merlin’s foot, but she wasn’t about to win a contest of strength against him. He shoved it wide and stepped inside, and Archfedd and Llawfrodedd followed me as I joined him.
With a discontented huff, the old woman shut the door with a creak and a bang behind us, probably in case any others of our party tried to get in.
The house seemed much as I remembered. Mosaics covered the floor, and light filled the atrium from the opening in the roof above what had once been a pretty impluvium, but now had degenerated into an unkempt, weed-filled pool.
On the far side, double doors stood open onto a spacious courtyard filled with evening sunlight, the warm air redolent with the scent of the many aromatic herbs growing in beds beside the colonnaded walkway.
No one was in sight.
I turned to the old woman. “Take us to your mistress, please.”
She sucked in her lips and saggy cheeks as though in a gurning competition. “I’ve telled you already, I’m not s’posed to let no one in.”
Merlin’s eyes narrowed and he moved closer to me. “That doesn’t sound like an order given by Morgawse,” he said in a low aside, then turned to the old woman. “Who issued that order?”
