Page 52 of The Road to Avalon
She stared back, her face expressionless again.
“But you’ve gained your father, and he’s far better. You’ll see.”
“Mother, come.” Archfedd grabbed my arm. “We need to go, now.”
Llawfrodedd flung the door open, and we staggered out into the shady walkway, warm and balmy as only a summer evening can be. How incongruous were the bees hovering on the flowering sage, the cooing of the doves on the tiled rooftops, the gentle sighing of a breeze. Behind us we left a life cut short, and even though she’d been a woman I’d hated for twenty years, I couldn’t find it in me to be glad.
Chapter Twenty-Two
My men werenot best pleased to have to saddle up their tired horses again when they should have been settling to their evening meal. However, I’d chosen them well, and despite a few moans and groans, they obeyed. Every one of them understood the urgency of our quest.
As soon as we were all mounted, I took the lead out of the stableyard and onto the street, heading back the way we’d come. My empty stomach twisted with fear at the needless extra miles we’d ridden, and the hours it had eaten out of our limited time. If only Merlin had been able to see Amhar was so close to Blestium, we could have saved ourselves a long journey. Well, two long journeys. If only Merlin’s Sight hadn’t been obscured by that bitch.
That dead bitch. How did I feel about that? Numb. Nothing. All I could think of was Amhar. Nothing else mattered.
I struggled to push thoughts of Merlin, and the fear that I shouldn’t have left him, away, and tried to concentrate on what lay ahead, praying we’d reach the fortress of Caer Guorthegirn before Arthur did. And that Merlin had been right.
Archfedd and Llawfrodedd tucked themselves in behind me, as silent as I was, their knees touching. I looked back only once, taking in the line of tired warriors behind them, then fixed my gaze on the road ahead. The road that would lead us to Amhar.
The events of the last hour weighed heavily on my heart no matter how much I tried not to think of them. The sound of Morgana’s neck breaking echoed in my head, and its sudden jerk as it bent too far backwards replayed itself repeatedly like a film on a loop. And yet I couldn’t find it in me to feel sorry for her. Not relief that she was gone, nor even disgust that Merlin had killed her. Just nothing, as though she didn’t matter. Yet she’d been a living, breathing human being. And now she wasn’t. Trying to shock myself like this didn’t work either. The numbness continued.
I rubbed tired eyes as the sun sank toward the distant, purple hills ranged along the horizon to my left, ready to plunge the world into evening’s twilight. My body ached with exhaustion from the miles we’d covered, but the strength of a mother desperate to defend her child still buzzed through me. I couldn’t rest until I had him in my arms.
Enfys must have picked up on my mood because despite the lateness of the day and her own tiredness from having already made such a mammoth journey, her step quickened, and she tossed her head as though sensing the proximity of our prey.
The endless road stretched on ahead of us, as we snail-crawled our way along the rough grass to either side of its stony surface. The sun dipped below the horizon, its last hopeful rays shooting across the darkening landscape, and overhead the first stars popped out, one by one. Soon, they’d sprinkled the canopy of the sky with diamonds.
Llawfrodedd brought his horse up beside Enfys. “You look done in. Do we make camp for an hour or two to rest the horses?”
I shook my head. “Merlin warned us Arthur is close. We have to keep going and reach Amhar before he does. I’m not giving up now.”
His kindly face, pale in the starlight, puckered in a frown. “How are you going to persuade the King to believe you? Have you considered that? We don’t have Merlin to back us up.”
I’d been thinking of nothing else. “He has to,” I said. “I’m his wife and Merlin his adviser. He has to believe what we say.” But my voice betrayed my lack of conviction. If only we had Merlin. What had been wrong with him? Why had he lost consciousness like that?
Llawfrodedd had the sense not to argue the point. His horse fell back until he was beside Archfedd again, and for a good while we rode in silence. Far away, an owl hooted, and another returned its call.
To either side of the road, forest pressed in a bowshot’s length away, dark and forbidding, made darker by the onset of night. I tried not to think of the brigands who might be lurking there, nor the wolves or wild boar. Britain was a land abounding with dangers for the unwary who ventured out after dark.
Now night had fully fallen, our progress slowed for fear our horses would stumble on the uneven ground. I’d have given the order to ride on the road itself had I not known that could be worse for unshod hooves not designed for stony surfaces. Even the Romans had ridden their horses beside their roads not on them.
Only the thought that Arthur might have made camp somewhere for the night and be no nearer to Amhar than we were comforted me a little.
We plodded on astride our tired horses into the endless night.
After what felt like forever but was probably no more than a couple of hours, we crossed the river in the same place we’d forded earlier that day, passing through the familiar tiny hamlet of roundhouses, dilapidated barns and pigpens like ghosts in the night. No one poked so much as a nose out to take a look at us– perhaps fearing our hoofbeats might be those of the ghosts of long-gone legions. They’d be snug in their beds with the covers pulled up over their heads.
Leaving the lower land behind, the road climbed as we headed further north, and our poor, hard-driven horses began to flag. At least the night air made the going easier for them, but sweat darkened their coats and foam had formed everywhere their saddlery rubbed them and between their hind legs– thick and white. We pushed them and ourselves as hard as we could, dismounting and walking as little as possible.
The itch of desperation drove me like the devil’s hounds.
The moon rose at last and climbed high into the blue-black sky, its round white lantern face lighting our way. Our road gleaming in the soft light, we descended into the river valley again and turned eastward, heading for Blestium.
Llawfrodedd and Archfedd now rode by my side. We couldn’t get our horses to go faster than a trot, and even that remained dangerous. But surely, my fevered brain kept saying, surely Arthur would be safely tucked up in his camp with his men, asleep, letting us catch him up as we rode through the night.
Those last seven miles to the little iron-smelting town of Blestium took forever, and already the sky had begun to lighten in the east when at last we spotted the first thatched houses. Our exhausted horses stumbled down the narrow main street as the first rays of the sun pierced the sky, promising yet another fine day.
“We can’t go on like this. We need fresh horses,” I said to Llawfrodedd. “For you and me if for no one else.”
