Shadow of the King (58 page)

her broken promise.

Sixty

The wind had eased a little to the east, was becoming chill again,

as it had in the morning. Medraut shivered, decided it was time to return

home. He called farewell to the other boys and, scrabbling into his clothes,

trotted along the upward-winding track.

He thought it was his friends he could still hear, but when he looked back,

they too had gone. Then he heard the screaming clearer, and ran, head down,

arms pumping; the voice was unmistakably his mother’s.

Slowing, out of breath, legs aching, he rested a hand on the rear wall of

the small granary. The screaming had stopped but he could hear laughter and

unfamiliar, guttural voices of men. And another sound. He dropped to his belly

and squirmed beneath the raised building, wriggling between the stone pillars

that supported the wooden floor, an effective means of keeping vermin from

the grain. His eyes saw another form of vermin, more vicious than the rats

that came creeping stealthily by night, more frightening than the great eagles

he occasionally saw sailing on the winds high above the hills. Five men in the

yard, big men, loud and brash. One was holding his Da, the others, one with

a bloodied nose, were hitting him, beating him. Medraut could see his Da’s

blood dribbling from above his eye, could hear him gasping as fists and feet

thudded into his body. What could a boy do? A boy of six years against five

grown men? He could run for help, but they lived apart, their dwelling well

to the outside of the lake community. And beside, it was mostly women down

there. A few had husbands but they were old men, farmers, and they all lived

too far away.

If he had a sword he could…a sword! His Da’s sword! He knew where his

mother had hidden it, for he had peeped over the edge of his sleeping platform,

watched as she had put it there, beneath the mattress of her own bed. He knew

how to get inside the house-place, too, without being seen. The gnarled old

walnut tree behind reached past the window opening that gave more ventilation

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 3 5 1

than light. It was small, but then, so was he. It was a route he used often if he

needed to sneak something out without his mother knowing; food usually, a

chunk of bread or wedge of cheese.

It was dark inside, with the door partially shut and no lamps lit, but Medraut

knew his way around, and his eyes became quickly adjusted to the dim light.

Morgaine lay huddled, curled, on the floor, arms wrapped around herself,

sobbing. Her skirts dishevelled. Blood and some other stuff trickling down

her thighs.

“Get up, Mam, Da needs help!” Medraut shook her, pulling frantically at her

arm, her shoulder, but she shook him off, curling deeper into herself, her sobs

jerking louder. “Mam! Please!”

Desperate, Medraut ran to her bed, tugged aside the mattress, and dragged

out the scabbard. It was heavier than he had anticipated; he needed both hands

to pull the blade from its sheath, both hands to carry it back to the window and

irreverently shove it through.

They were still hitting his father, those horrid men. What could he do? He could

barely lift the weapon, could never use it—and then he thought of Onager.

The boy had ridden occasionally on the backs of ponies, once on a bigger

horse used to pull a wagon into Avallon. It was not the same as riding a war-

horse, but how different could it be? He managed to get the horse’s bridle

on by balancing on a stool and coaxing the animal’s head down. The saddle

he abandoned, for he was unsure how all the straps went; it would take too

much time to think it all out. He found some rope, wound it around the hilt

of the sword, and looped it around his shoulder; he climbed atop a barrel and

withheld breath, clambered onto Onager’s back. He had done well: the horse

had only nipped him twice!

The byre doors stood open; beyond, he could hear the men jeering, hear

their shouted words, though they spoke in a language he did not understand.

He knew how to make horses move. He took up the reins in one hand,

steadied the dangling sword with the other, and brought both his heels back

in a mighty kick.

Onager plunged, head down, back arched, squealing. Medraut let go both

reins and sword, clutched frantically at the horse’s mane, managed to stay

aboard through several of those enormous bucks. Onager careerned forward,

they were well beyond the door now, near the pile of muck and dung rotting

for use on the fields, another buck and…but at least it was soft. The Saxons had

scattered, convinced this was some fire-breathing creature of the gods. Dizzy,

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Arthur managed to dodge the animal’s crazed path, ran, breath gasping in his

throat for Medraut who sat in the muck, holding the naked sword as high as he

could manage. Arthur took it, swung around as, gathering their senses, two of

the men came at him.

It had been a long time since he had held this sword in the grip of his hand.

A long time since he had swung it, used its strength and beauty to destroy and

maim, but the time fell away as simply as dew beneath the scorching sun; it was

as if it had never been from his grasp, never been from his side.

And there was another man, with another sword, coming from the gateway,

yelling and hacking at the Saxons. A few moments only, and the five men lay

dead, and Gweir stood leaning upon his sword, grinning at Arthur.

It is good,” he said, “to fight again with the Pendragon.”

Sixty-One

The man in the byre talked easily, helped along by the subtle persuasion

of Gweir’s boot coming into contact, none too gently, with his shattered

thigh. He was, he then willingly told them, one of a group of men who had

followed the Lady Gwenhwyfar across Gaul, men who had been paid to ensure

the Pendragon was undeniably dead, paid to retrieve his head.

“Do we finish him?” Gweir asked when nothing more of interest was

forthcoming.

Arthur was seated on a pile of old mildewing sacking and straw. His brain

reeled and his vision seemed as if he were walking through a heavy, moorland

mist. What in ever the gods’ names was wrong with him? It was not the beating,

for this dizziness and disorientation had been bothering him before then, since

yesterday. Two vivid bruises were welling on his cheek and beneath his eye,

more would be on his body. He would tend them later, no hurry now. He

stood, feeling the room sway, held his hand out to the boy who sat wide-eyed,

open-mouthed, inside the doorway. Growled at Gweir, “Aye, do it.” To the

boy, in a kinder tone he teased. “Come with me, lad. Since you let him loose,

you can help me catch Onager. Unless he’s found a patch of sweet grass, he’s

likely to be half-way to Rome by now.”

The boy’s face dropped, and the thumb went back to his mouth. Arthur

ruffled his hair, swung him up into his arms. “You did well, lad, I’m proud

of you.” Amazing, the sudden difference of expression, from dismay of doing

wrong, to elation.

A brief, high-pitched gurgle came within the byre. Medraut attempted to

turn his head to look, but Arthur distracted him, carried him away with long

strides. Gweir emerged, bent to wipe the blade of his dagger on grass tufting

beside the sow’s pen.

Morgaine was standing in the yard, her face blotched and puffed by tears, the

skin beneath ash-white. She had one hand stuffed into her mouth, fear raged in

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her eyes, hair straggled across her face. It needed re-dying, for the brilliant red

it had been these past weeks was fading, the paleness of her own natural colour

streaking through the artificial pretence. How many colours had Morgaine used?

Red, black. A rich, dark brown? Never fair, as she had been as a child, never

spun gold like her mother. The thick, black kohl she used to line and darken her

eyes had run in streaks down her cheeks making her appear haggard, and twice

her two and twenty years. As Arthur and the boy emerged into the evening light,

she pointed with trembling fingers, at the men sprawled in various postures of

death. “He is not here,” she quavered. “The one I spoke with, he is not here.”

Arthur dipped his head over his shoulder. “There is another, in there.” He

did not understand, but did not question. Added, not without a tint of cruelty,

“His throat is cut.”

Onager had not moved from beside the muck heap, as Arthur had known.

He would not move without a rider while the reins hung loose, every war-

horse of the Artoriani was trained so, such entrenched discipline could save

an unhorsed rider’s life in battle. Arthur tossed the boy onto the horse’s back,

picked up the reins. “Hold his mane—and keep your heels still!” Smiling at the

boy’s delight, Arthur returned the animal to the safe confine of his stall.

Inside, addressing Morgaine, he said dispassionately, “That your man?” She

stood beside the bloodied, twisted body, chewing her thumb-nail as her son

would have done, too numbed to answer.

Slipping the bridle from Onager’s head, and lifting the boy down, Arthur

glanced at her, caught from the corner of his eye a spark of red on the dead

man’s left hand. A ring. Curious, he handed the bridle to the boy, walked

forward, hunkered beside the body his narrowing eyes never leaving the ring.

Gweir had come up behind Arthur as he lifted his head to ask of Morgaine, in

a quiet, dark voice, “How did this Saex bastard come by my ring?”

Morgaine was too dizzy-witted to not answer. Nothing like her mother!

Morgause would have been laughing or sneering at the incompetent failure

of the dead. Rape would be a meaningless thing for the woman who had

entertained more men in her bed, for her own gain, than any tavern whore.

Morgause would have held her tongue. Even through the pain of torture she

would not have answered Arthur—answered any man. Morgaine, though, had

fear on her face, and guilt. Emotions unknown to her mother. “He was not

supposed to kill you, only her. I thought he understood that.”

Arthur squatted, very still, very quiet. His eyes had dropped again to the ring;

his ring, his dragon ring. The last time he had worn it was on the morning of

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the last battle. And again, in his tortured mind, he saw that day. Saw his men,

his brothers, his friends, hacked down and dying. Saw and felt the deep, raw

pain of his failure.

Gweir stepped across the body, removed the ring, held it on the open palm

of his hand. The Pendragon’s ring. Reverently, he handed it to Arthur, who

took it, slid it onto his left hand where it nestled comfortable, familiar, as if it

had never been removed.

“Ambrosius,” Gweir began in desperation. He faltered. Would the Pendragon

heed him? He had turned away from his lady wife; why would he listen to a man

who was once a slave boy? In a rush of speech he ploughed on. “Ambrosius is

making the biggest balls-up Britain has been saddled with. War’s brewing—if it

hasn’t already boiled over.” He bit his lip, swallowed, lifted his eyes to Arthur

and pleaded, “We need you, my lord. Britain needs you.”

The Pendragon was staring at Morgaine, his expression hard, jaw clamped, eyes

narrowed. If he heard or listened to Gweir, he made no sign, save that he irritably

gestured for him to leave the byre. “Take the boy with you,” he snapped.

Head bowed, disappointed, Gweir obeyed.

“You gave my ring to this Saxon?” His gaze had not left Morgaine. His

brain was sluggish, reluctant to function, comprehend, but a few things were

beginning to make sense. At the beginning how many times had he almost

gone from here? Two or three? And on how many occasions had something

happened to stop him? The sow farrowed over-early and that house-place

fire, both during those months when he was first recovered, when he had

talked of going home. Coincidence? And those stomach cramps and the

dysentery that had seized him…His head was fuzzy. It all meant something.

He was trying to think. He shook his head, it was as if he had drunk too

much barley-brewed wine and was drugged from its numbing effect…and

he saw it all.

“You bitch!” The dark hatred that came into the shadow of his eyes was

intense. Not like her mother? What a simple fool he had been!
Na
, she was not

as confident or competent as Morgause, but Morgaine had her own talent, her

own art. Was she not a healer? Did she not know the properties of herbs and

roots and plants? Aye, she knew them well enough to be able to cure a sickness

as well as plan an illness. The bread, so thickly smeared with sweet honey. The

stew, so strong with flavourings? Drugged!

“God’s breath!” Arthur snarled, his disgust reeling. “Even your own son? He

was ill, so very ill. You poisoned your own son, so I might stay?”

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His hand came over his mouth, fingers pinching the nostrils to stem the rise