Page 72 of The Road to Avalon
Abbot Jerome. Wasn’t there something I’d once read about sanctuary being given to people in danger if they went to a church? If I took her there, might we be safe? Could Arthur and Medraut do anything to get her back? I went down the hill to the church in the village and gently probed the priest to see what he could tell me. I phrased it as though my question concerned some far-off problem, crossing my fingers that he wouldn’t put two and two together and come up with five. But yes, if I could get her to the abbey, and into the church itself, she’d be safe. I dismissed his own church as far too close– the abbey would provide us with the protection of miles of marshland as well as sanctuary.
I put my plan into practice the next morning. No point in waiting. Leaving Arthur lying in bed and sleeping off his excesses of the night before, I dressed and tiptoed through to Archfedd’s room. She and Maia shared a big bed, and both stirred when I came in.
Archfedd sat up. “What is it?”
I put my finger to my lips. “We’re going for a ride. Get dressed. I need to talk to you away from the fortress. And make sure you bring your sword.” A small lie, but I didn’t want Maia getting into trouble for being complicit.
Five minutes later, we were down in the stables saddling our horses. As soon as they were ready, I pulled out the saddlebags I’d hidden under the heap of clean straw in the next-door stall. “Here, fasten this to your saddle.”
She regarded me with widening eyes, but did as she was told, while I attached mine. We led our horses out, swung up into their saddles, then turned them downhill toward the gates.
A few people were already about, so I waved a casual hand at them and Archfedd followed suit. They all knew I liked to ride out whenever possible, and often in summer at first light. The guards had the gate wide open for us, and, as we started on the downhill road, the bang of the gates closing echoed behind us. An itch between my shoulder blades made me want to trot, but the hill path was too steep, and I had to control my impatience.
In my imagination, Arthur had already found me missing and gone to check on Archfedd. Any minute now he’d be shouting after us from the gates, having guessed my intention.
Nothing. We made it to the hillfoot without interruption.
“Now we have to hurry,” I said to Archfedd. “Before they find us missing and work out what we’ve done.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder as we trotted through the village. She didn’t need to ask the reason why we were running.
“Sanctuary,” I said. “Ynys Witrin and the abbey. You’ll be safe there. No one can break the law of sanctuary.”
Once out of the village we drove our horses hard. They were fit and well-rested and ate up the ten miles to the lake village, but then, so would the horses of any pursuer. A fit horse can do ten miles in under two hours, and it was still early when we rode into the cluster of barns and pens on the shore beside the village. Low mist shrouded the water beyond the little platform of squat thatched houses, the disembodied tips of distant stunted trees poking above its cottonwool whiteness. A skein of ducks rose in noisy flight, and the sound of a bittern booming echoed across the hidden reedbeds.
I’d been here a number of times with Arthur, but never with Archfedd. Her mouth hung open at the sight of the village perched out above the water on its platform of debris and rickety scaffolding. “We’re goingthere?” she asked, as I dismounted.
A couple of coarsely-clad, shaggy-headed men emerged from the pigpens, pitchforks in hands, broad grins on their faces. “Milady the Queen, you’re most welcome here.” The taller of the two made a sweeping bow, and I saw with a start that it was Con, the little boy I’d met on the day I’d first found myself here nearly twenty years ago. He’d filled out now to the full proportions of a man grown and lost the softness of boyhood that had still hung about him when he’d helped Arthur and me retrieve Excalibur from its watery home on the island, seven years since.
“Con,” I grinned back. “What’re you doing here? I thought you lived on the island?”
He shook his head. “Not now I doesn’t. I’m wed to Tybie, a lake village girl, so we do live here, along-a her family.” He gestured at the pen full of chuntering pigs. “These be my pigs. I done well for meself what with the sheep the king sent me after I helped him.”
I turned as Archfedd slid down from her saddle. “This is my daughter, Archfedd. We need to get across to the island as quickly as possible. Can you help us? Normally Nial takes us in his boat, but I don’t see him today.”
Con pulled a wry face. “’Tis early yet for old Nial. He ain’t so snicky as he once were. He do like to stay in bed a while then take his time a-gettin’ up. He be an old man, now, an’ a bit bent an’ stiff of a mornin’.”
“Can you take us, then?” If I hadn’t felt time pressing in on us, I’d have enquired more about Nial and perhaps asked to see him.
Con nodded. “We’ve finished doin’ the pigs. I’ve a sow what’s due to farrow, but she won’t be a-doin’ it today, I don’t doubt. I’ve time to take you in me boat meself.” His gaze ran over Archfedd’s flushed face and open mouth, appreciation of her beauty in his honest eyes. “We’ll have to go into the village to get me boat.”
I looked at the off-puttingly narrow walkway that curved out across the murky water toward the village. It had never been my favorite thing, but I’d have to pretend bravery for Archfedd’s sake. Her eyes had gone even rounder at the sight of it.
“Come on,” I said, taking her hand. “We don’t have time to waste. Let’s go.”
We retrieved our saddlebags, and Con’s friend led our horses into one of the barns. They’d be safe there a while until Arthur found them.
I bestowed a determined stare on the walkway and took a deep breath. I could do it.
To my amazement, I strode across it as though I did it every day of my life, and Archfedd followed behind, with Con in the rear. I knew the way to go.
The houses clustered around a small central courtyard where nets were repaired and fish gutted, but only a few naked children played there now. Their mothers would be doing their household chores. I hurried past and down a narrow alley to the wooden jetty on the far side of the village’s precarious island home. A dozen flat bottomed boats bobbed there on the current, attached only by tatty, reed-woven bow ropes.
“This be my boat,” Con said, untying one of the ropes and pulling the boat round to the jetty, sideways on. “In you get, Miladies.”
More bravery was required. Archfedd had never been in a boat, and I needed to show her it wasn’t something to be afraid of. I stepped in first, feeling its unstable wobble. Gritting my teeth to ignore the movement, I took her hand and helped her in. Both of us sat down on the thwarts with shared relief, and she kept tight hold of my hand.
“I don’t like this much,” she whispered.
