Read Shadow of the King Online
Authors: Helen Hollick
Tags: #Contemporary, #British, #9781402218903, #Historical, #Genre Fiction, #Literature & Fiction
Again Arthur shrugged, how could he answer? How could he say aloud that
there had been nothing for him to go back to? That he had not the courage
to face what once had been, with the blood of defeat stinking so strong on his
hands? In the end, all he could say was, “I walked with death for a long time, and
when I was recovered there was nothing left in my spirit to guide me back.”
Standing beside his horse, one hand to the reins, Gweir felt a surge of sudden,
uprushed anger. All those tears, all those damned, wasted tears! “Not even for
us?” he said bitterly. “Not for all those men who would die a hundred deaths
for you?” Then softer, perplexed, added, “You turned your back on so much,
so many.”
“They say,” Arthur replied, a tightness catching in his throat, “that when
learning to ride a horse, if you fall you must get on again straightway, else your
nerve shatters.” He spread his hands, the mallet dangling, “I fell, and there was
no horse for me to mount.”
Gweir stepped forward, leading his dun, held the reins out to Arthur. His
eyes, imploring, said, “Here is mine. Take him. Come home.” Arthur’s smile
was sad. “’Tis not as simple as that, lad, I would that it were.”
“Where is the difficulty?” Gweir protested. “If ever you loved your men and
your country, if ever you loved your wife”—Arthur winced—“then mount
this horse. Now.”
For a moment, Arthur held the lad’s hurting eyes, recognised the pain
there—did he not feel that same pain biting into his own, twisting soul? He
shook his head, turned away.
His head hanging, Gweir shut his eyes against the well of tears. He had not
intended to say all that, had not expected to be so angry. What had possessed
him? Hastily, he untied the roll of linen from behind his saddle, ran the few
steps that separated him and his lord, held the bundle to him.
“She said to give you this. Said, this would tell you all you need to know.”
Gweir put the thing into Arthur’s hand, stepped back as the Pendragon looked
for a moment at it, unwrapped the covering. A leather scabbard, functional,
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nothing exceptional. Inside, a sword. He knew that pommel, knew the firm
feel of power and strength that flowed from it into the skin of your hand, knew
its wonder. Knew all that without need to draw the blade.
If his heart was pounding before, it now leapt faster. He licked dry lips,
looked from the sword to Gweir, back to the sword. His sword. The sword he
had taken in battle from a Saxon, the sword he had last seen at…He looked up
at Gweir, asked simply, “She?”
Boldly, Gweir spoke out. It was the best way, best to fight with the edge of
your blade, not the flat. “Bedwyr took the sword back to Britain; he thought
it a thing he ought do. Found, as you would have found had you returned,
that further word never reached you, that you had been mistakenly told false.
Bedwyr gave the sword to her, and now she has brought it here, returned it to
you. For you to do with as you will.”
Dumb, with no word in his mind or mouth, Arthur stared blankly at Gweir,
his lips slight parted, brow dipped in a questioning furrow.
“You were told wrong, my king, thank the Lord,” Gweir responded in a rush
of words. “She lives. Like me, like you, Gwenhwyfar lives. She is at the convent
at the Place of the Lady, not a handful of miles from here, waiting for you.”
Fifty-Two
Arthur leant his forehead down into the goat’s warm flank, his
fingers working automatically, stripping the milk from her full udder,
sending it hissing into the wooden bucket. She was a good animal, this one,
content to stand quietly, rarely kicking or fidgeting. Not like her eldest daughter,
a demon to milk. Arthur frequently threatened to butcher her. If it was not for
her consistent yield, he probably would have done so by now.
His busy fingers slowed, stopped. The goat lifted her head, thoughtfully
chewing, enjoying the feed placed in the bucket before her. Arthur shut his
eyes, pressed back threatening tears.
A child’s feet, running. They were returned, Medraut and his mother. She
called something to the boy, then he was at the byre door, his fingers fumbling
with the stiff latch. Arthur scrubbed the back of his hand across his cheek,
continued with the milking. Medraut, breathless, his face flushed from the
exhilaration of running in the heat of the afternoon, was at his side.
“Mam says, can she have the milk as soon as you have finished?” Arthur
grunted agreement.
“There were a lot of people in Avallon today, and we saw soldiers marching
along the Roman road.” Receiving no reply, the boy gaily chattered on. His
father was often silent, often answered with only aye or no, or a grunt. “They
were Burgundians, Mam said, hundreds of them, all singing and laughing as
they marched! I wonder where they were going?” He was darting about, full of
a child’s exuberant energy as he talked, swinging his arm as if it held a sword,
parrying and thrusting, fighting an imaginary opponent. “The leaders wore
chain armour and bright coloured cloaks, and their helmets had horse-tails on
the top.”
“Many weapons?”
“Oh aye, spears and swords and great axes!” Medraut changed his imaginary
weapon to an axe, which he swung haphazardly from side to side. Arthur had
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finished the milking, was moving the bucket to where it could not be knocked
or kicked over. You only did that once, when milking, leave a full bucket
where it was vulnerable. “You use an axe like that in battle, boy, you’ll be dead
within the first few minutes.”
Medraut’s lips pouted.
Moving to the stacked woodpile to one side of the cluttered byre, Arthur
casually lifted the chopping axe from where it hung on a roof-support post. He
set a log end on, on the earthen floor and gripping the shaft with both hands,
brought the axe down, clean through the centre, the wood falling in two equal
halves. “You can split a skull as effectively.” Arthur set the two billets of wood
to the top of the pile.
“Have you ever killed a man with an axe?” Medraut was impressed, his
question asked with awe. He was a lad of six years, an age when warrior heroes
and super-strength gods filled his mind and dominated the breathless stories he
asked for.
“You use anything you have in battle, boy, including fists and teeth, knees
and feet.” Arthur held the axe in his hand. It was heavy, not well made, an
axe adequate for wood chopping not sturdy, reliable for battle. “The axe is a
weapon for the ranks. Mine was the sword.”
“Have you been in many battles then, Da? Before you came to stay here
with us?” Medraut knew little of his father’s past. That he had come from
somewhere else, injured and unwell, he knew. He vaguely remembered a long
walk with his mother, once, dimly remembered a lot of men fighting, but his
mother had never talked of it, and neither had Arthur. It could all have been a
dream. He often dreamt of battle and soldiers, marching and fighting, dreamt
of being a hero, brave and strong.
Arthur snorted through his nose. “A few,” he answered. He sighed, placed
the axe back where it belonged. “A few.” He turned his back on the woodpile,
bent to lift the bucket of creamy, warm milk. It was there, hidden between the
logs of wood, his sword, the sword that had once made him a king.
Opening the door for his father, Medraut was still chattering about the
men he had seen, asking questions, reciting his observations, not noticing that
Arthur’s answers were grunts or monosyllabic. “Some of them had their hair
tied in a tail on top of their head, they looked like horses. Who was that man
we saw riding away from here? What did he want?”
Abruptly, Arthur stopped, the milk slopping over the brim of the bucket.
“What man?”
3 2 4 H e l e n H o l l i c k
“The one riding a dun horse. We were coming down the hill; we saw him
riding away.”
“Oh. He was seeking directions, had taken the wrong track.”
Medraut was only a child. Morgaine, his mother, would have caught the rise
of inflection in Arthur’s voice, would have heard the catch in his throat and
seen the quick rise of breath on his chest. Being a boy, Medraut had no reason
to doubt his father’s answer.
Fifty-Three
The horse held his head out stiffly, easing the discomfort of the
swollen, misshapen glands beneath his jaw. Onager was ill. He was off
his feed, his body slumped, eyes dull and disinterested. The nasal discharge had
altered from a clear trickle to the thick, opaque flux common to the strangling
disease, an illness that spread from horse to horse with rapacious speed—the
young were the most vulnerable, together with the unfit and the old. Onager
was a good horse, in his prime, well-fed, well-groomed, but as a colt he had
not contracted a dose of this wretched illness, was paying for that earlier
escape now.
The jaw abscess was hardening, was ready to burst, the danger being that
it would burst internally, would drain inward. Gwenhwyfar stroked her hand
sympathetically along his neck, his coat harsh and rough beneath her finger-
touch; her misery was compounded by a combination of lack of sleep, profound
disappointment, and anxiety. She was regretting the impulsive decision to bring
Onager. Was regretting coming at all. What a fool she had been!
To know he was alive. Is that what she had told herself all these weeks, these
months? Just to know he was alive? Was she a fool, born under the madness of
a red moon? She wanted him back—had assumed he would come back to her,
with her. Fool! Her soothing fingers had wandered to the hard lump beneath
Onager’s jaw. It would need lancing to ensure the pus drained away correctly,
a task she detested. A foul, messy job. Do it now, or leave it another day?
Two days past Gweir had ridden out of the valley, had said little on his return.
“Did you see him?” Gwenhwyfar had asked, flushed, breathless.
“I saw him.”
“And?”
“And I left his sword with him, as you asked.”
That first night had passed slowly, hot and airless, with Gwenhwyfar unable
to sleep. She had prowled her room, lain down, got up. Told herself the
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agitation was for Onager, ill in the stables. Knew it for the excuse it was.
Tomorrow Arthur would come, they would wait for Onager to recover, and
then go home. Oh, would tomorrow never come?
The day came, but Arthur did not. Another dawn. Sun-up, midday. Evening,
a haze of dark clouds gathering into another grumbling storm.
“You told him I was here?” She had asked Gweir several times.
He had bitten his lip, tried to avoid meeting her eyes. He had nodded. “I told
him.” But how could he tell her Arthur’s last words? “I have for myself another
life, another home.”
The stables were lit by only two lamps for the night. More were unnecessary.
The men had gone to their beds, although Ider would not be far away, prob-
ably having a last drink with the tavern-keeper. The gates to the convent would
have been locked more than two hours past. She would sleep near Onager this
night. Rain pattered lightly on the stable roof. Again, Gwenhwyfar fingered
that ripening swelling.
Footsteps beyond the door. Ider had said he would come to see all was well
before he slept. The lamps flickered briefly as it opened and closed, chivvying
a draught. “We must make decision on this tomorrow,” Gwenhwyfar said, her
head tilted, peering closely at the abscess. “We cannot afford to leave its lancing
over-late.”
The aisle between the stalls was long and narrow, much of it in darkness. The
man’s boots clattered on the cobbling, a smell of a rain-wet cloak. He lifted the
lighted lamp as he came abreast of it, carrying it high, stretched forward, felt the
hard lump, ran his hand affectionately down the horse’s neck. The animal lifted
his head, ears pricking, attempted a soft whicker of greeting.
“Ah, my handsome lad, I can see you are not well, but we will get you better.”
Gwenhwyfar stood very still, her fingers remaining on Onager’s crest, her
heart pounding, mouth dry, lost for the right words to say.
Arthur set the lamp safe into a niche high in the wall, placed his fingers
lightly over hers. His hand was cold, the skin sun-browned. He was thinner
than she remembered, his cheeks hollowed, eyes tired. His hair needed cleaning
and combing, a shave, too, for the stubble was thick on his face. An uneasy,
embarrassed silence. “You would have been thinking I was not going to come,”
he said, his voice so familiar.
“I was starting to think that.”
For want of something more to say, he touched Onager again. “This needs
lancing. Tonight.”
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“It will go another day.”
“No, it will not!” he said it wildly, with more aggression than he had