Camelot & Vine (25 page)

“He knows nothing!” Lancelot slammed me
against the nearest tree. My shoulder felt like it came apart in
his hand. He drew his sword and pointed it at my chin. The whites
of his eyes gleamed in the dark. “Arthur will never have his damned
proof. That does not worry me. But you knew the name of my son
before I named him.”

“That’s because I’m from the fu—”

A victory shout arose from the Saxon camp,
of voices both British and Belgae.

Lancelot shoved me to the ground and jammed
his sword into its sheath. “Leave or die,” he said, and stomped off
into the night.

THIRTY-TWO

I ran, stumbling, toward the battleground.
It was easy to see because the forest was on fire.

“Casey!” Arthur and Agravain carried a body
to a spot away from the flames and laid it on the ground. “Heal
Gareth!” Arthur ran off but Agravain stayed, kneeling beside his
brother.

“A dire wound,” said Bedwyr, arriving with
clothing and rags to pillow Gareth’s unconscious head. “He must be
tended quickly. Help me, Agravain.”

The two raised Gareth’s arms and pulled off
his mail shirt. His blood-soaked tunic had been slashed above his
abdomen.

Bedwyr ran off, leaving Agravain to watch
while I did my magic.

I guessed I should clean the wound. Men
shouted and ran past. Flames crept closer. With Agravain watching I
didn’t dare take a rag from beneath Gareth’s head, so I tore a
swatch of cloth from my underdress and began to daub. It wasn’t
enough, it would not be nearly enough. The cloth was immediately
soaked and the wound still bled.

The shouting receded but the fire did not. I
assumed the soldiers had gone for the horses. The recent rain had
soaked the land, but flames cracked and spat at my back. I didn’t
want to move Gareth again.

I reached for a rag from Gareth’s pillow.
Agravain glared. I hesitated. Then I took them all. I was the
wizard, damn it.

I rested Gareth’s head on the ground and
stuffed the clothing around his arms and chest to try to raise it.
It was another guess. I wished Agravain would say something.

I used the rest of the rags for staunching
the wound. The flow did finally stop. Whether it was my doing or
not I didn’t know.

-----

Our wagons could not travel through the
dense forest, so Bedwyr sent Hew back with a stretcher. He and
Agravain had obviously moved bodies before; a pair of experts, they
laid the stretcher flat and, one at each end of him, carefully
lifted Gareth so I could slide it under him.

We were to meet the others on the road. It
wasn’t far; the fighting had taken place near where I’d first found
the king upon my arrival through the Gap. We had little to guide us
but the fire we left behind, the fire that must have started when a
soldier either kicked the campfire or tripped on a stupid branch
trick.

When we climbed the rise to the road it was
still dark. Our troops approached from the south, their torches
lighting the way. According to Hew, with the exceptions of Gareth
and the red-haired boy our casualties had been minor injuries, and
the men were able to move quickly. They’d carried the boy’s body
through the woods, loaded the wagons and ridden out onto the
road.

King Arthur himself led Lucy by her reins.
“Mistress Casey,” he said, dismounting and handing the reins to me,
“you will attend my kinsmen Gareth and Agravain to Beran Byrig, to
heal Gareth with the help of the physician there.”

I couldn’t go to Beran Byrig. What would I
do there? Tell the physician I was Arthur’s wizard? Then what? Make
up some fake spells? I’d be found out in minutes. I could do
nothing for Gareth but dab his sweaty forehead and carry out a real
doctor’s orders, and I was safer doing that with Myrddin than with
anyone else. At least when Myrddin figured out I was of no use he
wouldn’t kill me. At Beran Byrig I’d have no such luck.

Lucy tossed her head, jerking the reins in
my hand. My shoulder hurt where Lancelot had shoved me against the
tree. I followed the king to the wagon where Hew and Agravain
waited with Gareth on the stretcher.

“Sire,” I said, “as Gareth is your kinsman
and his wound is severe, I ask you to give me Myrddin’s help.”

“Hold that torch up and give us some light,
will you?”

Wincing at the jab in my shoulder I moved
Lucy’s reins to my left hand and pulled the torch from its bracket
on the wagon’s side with my right. “Two wizards are better than
one,” I said.

“Beran Byrig is closer,” said the king.

Agravain jumped aboard the wagon. King
Arthur and Hew lifted Gareth onto the bed and Agravain guided the
stretcher into place.

“But Sire, Myrddin’s healing is the best
there is.”

“The trip is arduous for a wounded man.
Gareth needs care as soon as possible.”

“What about Ynys Witrin?”

“It’s farther, and the road is not as
good.”

The king helped cover Gareth with blankets.
“That’s fine. Agravain, you’ll want to drive.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“To horses, then!” The king jogged toward
the front of the company, where he’d left Llamrai.

I returned the torch to its bracket. I knew
how to sell. I’d been doing it for years. Leading Lucy, I trotted
after King Arthur, made him my target audience and sold him my wish
like it was a bottle of
Gone!
“Aren’t the priestesses known
for their healing, Sire? Send us to Ynys Witrin and Gareth will
have Myrddin, me and the priestesses to take care of him. Three in
one! It can’t fail.”

The king stopped with his foot in the
stirrup. His shoulders sagged. “Why do I argue with the healer who
saved Lancelot’s wife and baby? Bedwyr—”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Send whoever you can spare to ride apace
and tell Myrddin to meet Mistress Casey at Ynys Witrin.”

-----

I had a hard time climbing aboard Lucy; my
shoulder hurt more and more where Lancelot had slammed it.

The two leaders, Lancelot and the king, led
their tired but triumphant troops south, away from the woods. I
recognized the curve of the route. We must have gone that way the
day I was captured, the last time the king’s men had been out
killing Saxons. I wondered if we’d been fighting in Small Common
just then, and if the Saxons we left behind took their final rest
where a livery stable would be one day.

I clucked to Lucy to catch up to the wagon
where Gareth lay covered in furs, tossing whenever the wheels hit a
bump. Agravain, who would not leave his brother, drove in his usual
silence, staring ahead, avoiding eye contact and conversation.

“Hurt yourself?” Bedwyr reined his horse
alongside mine.

I held Lucy’s reins with my right hand and
kept my throbbing left arm close in front of me. “Yeah. In the
battle.”

“Priestesses can take care of it if you
can’t, I expect.”

“I expect.”

“Could’ve been worse. You with no
armour.”

There were some for whom it had been worse.
“What was the boy’s name?”

Bedwyr kept his eyes on the road. “Crewan.
Parents came from the north and stayed. Father died in Arthur’s
service, too.”

“What about his mother?”

“Works the fields. She and her
daughters.”

Morning dawned for us even as it did not for
others, a fresh day with a scent of late summer in it. The forest
thinned and soon we rode on open road, the plains widening as the
day became new. This time, though they were tired, the men did not
seem so wary.

I felt myself warming as the sun rose. When
I reached to loosen Sagramore’s cape, pain shot up and down my left
arm. I suppressed a moan. No one noticed.

-----

Bedwyr tugged on his reins. Though no order
was given, the entire party slowed to a stop. Ahead, King Arthur
and Lancelot leaned across the short distance between their horses
to confer. The company had stopped at the Giant’s Ring.

Arthur dismounted and led Llamrai to the
roadside to graze. He left the horse there and walked slowly up the
road, away from his troops toward the Giant’s Ring. One at a time,
the men dismounted. Bedwyr and Sagramore followed the king.

“We will be here for perhaps an hour, no
more,” Lancelot called out to the men who remained with the wagons.
“You may rest. The time is yours.”

I stayed in the saddle. Arthur had reached a
place up the road where a bridge of land spanned a wide ditch,
leading across to the standing stones. His friends caught up to him
and together they crossed the bridge with eyes uplifted. Their
heads and torsos moved through the high grass. They were the older
men among us. The young ones played dice on the road and peed in
the ditches, forgetting, or not caring, that there was a woman
present. Some napped in the grass, like kids at the edge of
boredom. Belgae and British were polite to each other but kept to
themselves, uncomfortable with their foreign languages. Lyonel
scratched his back against a tree like a big bear. He caught my eye
and grinned.

I decided to dismount and go with the king,
to walk among the stones as he did. But when I put my weight onto
my arms and leg to dismount, I began to understand what kind of
damage Lancelot had done to my shoulder. I wouldn’t be able to get
down from Lucy’s back without help.

“How is the patient, mistress?” Lancelot
strode across the road to me.

“Ah. Time to check on him.”

“Yes. Check on him.”

Aware of Lancelot’s scrutiny, I reached down
from Lucy’s back into the wagon, to tug at Gareth’s fur blankets
and feel his clammy forehead. These were not easy moves to make.
The pain in my shoulder had traveled through my back and seeped
down my arm.

“He’s stable,” I said.

“Good. I trust you have not forgotten our
exchange last night.” The early morning light accentuated the
shadows under his eyes.

“I haven’t.” The words “leave or die” were
going to stick with me.

“You may stay until you have healed Gareth.
Then you will go.” Lancelot glanced at Gareth and frowned. I
thought he might say something more, but he turned his back and
walked away.

Up the road, King Arthur, Sagramore and
Bedwyr paced among the stones, their heads bent. From time to time
one of them would stop, pick something up, hold it, speak to it,
pause, and throw it.

-----

When the three old friends returned to ride
again I was glad to move on. Though it hurt to guide Lucy by the
reins, each step got me closer to Myrddin, closer to the
priestesses, closer to healing for my unresponsive patient, and
closer to help for me.

We came to the tree-lined intersection
marked by the stone cross inside its circle, where the road split
southeast for Poste Perdu, south for the coast and west for
Cadebir. The company halted to let the horses drink in the stream,
and Lancelot’s men took leave of Arthur’s soldiers, shaking hands
and saying adieu.

“I would not part with you, Lance,” said
Arthur, leaning toward Lancelot and making his new saddle creak,
“but you have earned your rest.” I detected no guile in the king’s
tone, yet it struck me that he might like to have his wife to
himself for a while.

With a quick glance to me, Lancelot said, “I
require no rest, Sire.”

“You would return with me, then?” I couldn’t
say if the king was glad about that or not, and I wasn’t to know.
The two steered their horses away from the group for a private
discussion.

While we were stopped, I used Gareth’s
medical needs as an excuse to ask Sagramore to tend to Lucy and
help me into Gareth’s wagon. I could no longer hold the reins. Any
one of the soldiers could have done a better job of caring for
Gareth than I could.

The decision was made. Lancelot would
accompany the king to Cadebir, and his men would rest at Poste
Perdu before returning for the festival of Calan Awst in a week’s
time. The company split up. Lancelot’s men headed southeast, waving
goodbye. King Arthur’s party, accompanied by Lancelot, turned west
for Cadebir. I’d have been glad to see the last of Lyonel, but he
remained always at his cousin’s side.

Beside me, Gareth lay on his back, pale and
shivering under the furs. A closer look gave me reason to worry.
Gareth’s condition appeared to be more grave than I’d originally
thought. I held his hand but he didn’t grip mine in return. The
others may have thought I was saying spells over him, but I was
scolding myself. We should have taken him to Beran Byrig. If we
didn’t get to Ynys Witrin soon my lies could cost him his life. I
was lucky they hadn’t cost mine, and they might still do so.

By the time Agravain turned our cart north,
splitting off from the others to take us to Ynys Witrin, Gareth’s
forehead was hot to the touch and my left arm felt like it had been
torn away from my body.

Agravain was his usual, chatty self.

THIRTY-THREE

When our small barge landed on the island’s
shore I was more than relieved to deliver Gareth into the hands of
the priestesses. After I drank something delicious, administered by
a quiet young woman in a muslin robe, I slept.

Deep in the night, Myrddin woke me.

“Bite this.”

“What is it?”

“Doesn’t matter. Cloth. Bite.”

I bit. Before I could ask more questions, he
slammed my arm up into my shoulder almost as hard as Lancelot had
slammed it against the tree. The tears that spewed from my eyes
were less from pain than from surprise, yet I gave full voice to my
shock.

“Someone tore your arm from its socket,”
said Myrddin.

My shoulder ached but the searing part of
the pain was gone.

“Did you put it back?”

“Sleep now,” said Myrddin, and I did.