Page 64 of The Road to Avalon
In his pale face his dark eyes sat in shadowed hollows. The dust of days on the road ran with streaks where his tears had fallen. Were falling still. His whole body, normally so strong and upright, sagged as though the world sat on his shoulders. It did. My world.
He drew in a shaky breath. “Gwen.”
I regarded him in stony silence. I had no compassion for him. Let him suffer. Let him hurt as I was hurting. Let him never forgive himself for what he’d done. I never would.
His right hand came up as though he wanted to reach for me, before falling back under my cold scrutiny.
Cei cleared his throat. “I’ll go. You need to talk.”
I didn’t watch him leave. His footsteps died away.
We stood in silence, looking at one another. Two wounded animals. No, I was the wounded one, and he the killer.
“I’m sorry,” he said, at last. “I’m so sorry I had to do this. You don’t know how sorry I am.”
The colossal understatement served as a red rag to a bull. “You’resorry? You’re telling me you’re sorry for killing my son? For cutting him down as though he were a common criminal? Have you any idea howinadequatethat is?” My voice rose with every word I spoke.
He put his hand up to rub his grubby forehead. “Hewasa criminal. That’s why I had to do it. I’m the High King. My own son couldn’t be seen to be above the law. No matter what he’d done.”
“He didn’t break the law.” I was shouting now, as all my careful self-control flew away like shreds of mist in the wind. “He didn’t do anything wrong at all. You should have waited. You should have waited forme. I could have told you the truth.”
His eyes flashed with anger. “And what truth would that be, then? Yours? That of a mother who refuses to believe wrong of her child? Your heart has deluded you. He was guilty of killing his brother– just as Cain killed Abel. He cursed himself by his actions just as Cain did. He could never have been my heir. He had to die. I couldn’t let him live.”
I stood my ground against this onslaught. “Merlinsaw he was innocent! You should have waited. YouknewMerlin couldn’t use his Sight. You should have waited for him.”
Arthur’s fists clenched by his sides. “And whereisMerlin? Not here. Not telling me himself that Amhar was innocent. No. Because it’s a lie, Gwen, a fabrication of your imagination. You’ve convinced yourself it’s true.” He shook his head. “But you’re wrong. He couldn’t deny it when I faced him. He couldn’t.”
I took a step closer. “I know what he said,” I spat, literally. “Cei told me everything. That wasn’t aconfessionyou heard. That was him giving up because he knew you wouldn’t believe him. Because he knew he was guilty in your eyes already. It’syouwho’ve convinced yourself of hisguilt. You’re the one who’s wrong. Not me.”
He shook his head again as though he wanted to shake my words out of it. “No. He ran. He didn’t deny it. He stood and watched me take my sword out, Gwen. He had time to deny it, but he didn’t. God, don’t you think I wanted him to? But he didn’t. D’you know what he did instead? He went down on his knees in front of me, but not to beg for mercy. No, not that. He bent his head and bared his neck, ready for the killing blow. That’s admission, Gwen. Admission.”
A surge of nausea rose up in me, but I had nothing to throw up. I tasted bile and spat onto the dirt before I could speak. “You killed him yourself?” The words came out incredulous and laden with horror. Cei had told me, but I’d not wanted to believe it, not wanted to hear it put into words. “You usedExcalibur, the swordIhelped you find, the sword of Macsen Wledig, tokillour son?”
His expression told me everything.
My eyes went to where it hung on his belt, the ornate hilt suddenly tarnished, the blade stained black with my son’s blood. Angry words fell out of my mouth. “That wasn’t why we were sent to find it. Nimuë didn’t intend you to use it this way. But this was what her mother wanted…”
I raised my eyes to Arthur’s face, and saw inside his head for the first time, like a revelation.
He hadn’t slept for days, and his skin was gaunt and gray with shadows like dark bruises around his eyes. Tears glistened on his long lashes and ran down his cheeks unheeded. His dark hair hung matted and unkempt to his shoulders. He looked what he was– a man who’d just had to execute his son and heir and broken his own heart with that killing blow.
I looked into the broken heart of the man I’d once loved but now hated.
His shining oldest son had been brutally murdered and thrown on a midden like a dead dog. He’d sworn revenge on whoever had done this, then every scrap of evidence had pointed to the jealous younger son who’d run like a frightened deer the moment he got the chance. The son who’d so recently forced a fight with his brother, and lost so humiliatingly. Why would he have thought anything else, but that Amhar was guilty?
Pain filled his eyes, a pain that would never leave him. A pain he deserved.
He’d ridden off in hot pursuit of Amhar, driving himself, his men and their horses into the ground. The exhausted faces in the farmyard had shown me that, as well as his. But his errant son had kept on running, running. And all that time, Arthur had been eaten up by the horror of what his boy had done. A horror he couldn’t escape.
Cei’s boy, Rhiwallon, had died a hero’s death on the battlefield at Ebrauc, but neither of Arthur’s sons had died well, with honor. His eyes told me I was wrong. Hehadloved Amhar just as he’d loved Llacheu. He still did. How hard must it have been to believe his child a murderer of the worst kind? A jealous, sneaking murderer. But hehadbelieved it, and he’d known that as High King he could show no mercy for such a crime. Whoever had done it.
An impulse to go to him and take him in my arms swept over me, with a longing for everything to be better. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Nothing would ever be better.
Morgana had named Medraut as the killer and I’d promised Morgawse that I didn’t believe he’d done it. But now I didn’t know. Morgana had wanted to clear the way for her own child, so getting rid of AmharandMedraut would have suited her plan. A non-existent plan, now she was dead, of course. But could Medraut be the guilty one? Or at least have had some hand in what had happened?
Arthur’s anguished eyes held mine. He’d had to kill the son he loved, and inside, it had killed something in him. And me.
That foolish urge to step forward and take him in my arms so we could grieve together welled up again in my aching heart. But only for an instant. How could I ever forgive him for this? How?
