Page 57 of The Road to Avalon
“Drink this,” someone’s voice echoed close by. Whoever had spoken raised my head and shoulders and the coldness of a horn beaker touched my lips.
I tasted strong alcohol, gagged and spat, and it ran down my chin. “No.” My voice came out thick and slurred as though my tongue refused to obey my thoughts. I turned my head away from the beaker, pressing my lips together.
Amhar. My boy. My beautiful boy.
The image of that lifeless body lying so awkward and broken on the farmhouse table flashed into the forefront of my mind. Every part of me convulsed in desperate denial.
A moaning noise began, like a wounded animal somewhere close.
It was me.
“Mami.” An icy hand on mine. Wasn’t it summer and this a sunny day?
I forced my eyes open a fraction. The frantic spinning lessened. The world came into blurry focus and stopped its mad gyrating. In place of the sky, the beams and thatch of an ancient, discolored roof hung over my head. The smell of straw and animal dung filled my nostrils. That cold hand clung onto mine.
A face I knew leaned over me.
Archfedd.My daughter. My child. Myonlychild.
She was kneeling beside me just inside the wide doorway of a barn. If I looked to my left without even moving my eyes, sky came into view, blue and cloudless and achingly beautiful. On a day when nothing would ever be beautiful again.
I peered into her face. Tears had made runnels through the dirt on her cheeks. She met my searching gaze with red and puffy eyes.
“Archfedd.” I’d meant to whisper, but it came out as a grating croak.
“Mami.” She threw herself onto my chest, clinging to me, sobs racking her slender body.
For a moment I didn’t know how to react. This wasn’t just my grief, it was shared. And she was as racked by it as me. I released my hold on the blanket and put my arms around her, my hands on her back, her hair in my face. Her body sagged into mine, weighing me down, pressing me into the uneven barn floor.
I scanned my narrow view of this alien world.
Cei stood in the wide doorway of the barn, one hand on the rough-hewn lintel, probably not for support but because in his awkwardness he needed somewhere to put his hand. He dropped his gaze to study his boots rather than meet mine; his face was as drawn and gray as Arthur’s…
Arthur.
Desperation seized me. Where was he? I turned my head from side to side. No one. Only Cei. Bright sunshine streamed through the doorway, haloing Cei and bringing with it the sweet smell of fresh-cut hay and the earthier scents of the farmyard. The smell of life on a day when only death existed.
Under my stare, Cei released his hold on the lintel, shifting from foot to foot in self-conscious discomfort. He kept his head down, his gaze still fixed on his feet, and now clasped his hands before him, the fingers working, never still. Like Lady Macbeth trying to wash the black spot away from her hands in her nightmare.
“My boy,” I whispered, at last. “What have you done to my boy?”
He didn’t answer.
I closed my eyes. Flies droned. Outside, a horse whinnied. The sound of Archfedd’s sobbing filled the warm air.
I couldn’t lie here like this, with my boy dead in the farmhouse. I had to get up. Gently, I pushed Archfedd off me and sat up. The world stayed in focus. Archfedd sat back on her heels, tears coursing down her cheeks and her shoulders shaking. The time for sympathy for my daughter’s loss would come later. I wasn’t just a mother, I was a queen, and I had to deal with this myself.
Using the barn wall, I pushed myself to my feet and stood for a moment, sucking in deep breaths until my legs stopped feeling like wet spaghetti and a little strength returned. Then I lifted my head and fixed Cei with a stony stare.
He must have felt my gaze. How could he not have?
With reluctance, he raised his head and our eyes met. Cei, my dear friend and brother-in-law, who’d dandled Amhar on his knee as a baby, who’d given me a shoulder to cry on when I needed it, who’d been ever kind to me and to my children. And yet… he was part of this. He’d killed my boy. Him, Arthur, all their men. They all held joint responsibility for this, but Arthur held the most. My son’s blood stained his hands.
“He didn’t do it, Cei,” I said, my voice flat. “He didn’t do it. You killed the wrong man.”
He licked his lips. “You believe that?”
I nodded, then wished I hadn’t as the world spun alarmingly again. My empty stomach rumbled, but I didn’t care. “Merlin told me.”
