The Book of Mordred (18 page)

That
wasn't a question he had been expecting. Still, "Not especially," he said.

"What about my magic?"

Mordred looked at Dunsten, who shrugged. The horse moved restively. Nimue smiled her most charming and self-confident smile.

Dunsten said, "I have the longer journey, and I
would
be able to move considerably faster without her." Mordred looked about to say something when Dunsten added, "And we cannot just abandon her here."

She thought Mordred might ask,
Why not?
Instead, sighing, he leaned down to help swing her up behind him onto the horse.

"Shortcut to the left," she said, determined to be of value.

"Just try not to fall off," he answered.

She tightened her grip and told herself that he was Merlin's and Arthur's enemy, and he wasn't to be trusted any more than was absolutely necessary. She also told herself that it didn't help anything to notice how handsome he was.

"Are you aware that you have gone too far west?" Nimue asked.

They had stopped by a stream after Mordred's horse had begun to favor one foot. Mordred was bent over to examine the hoof and didn't spare her a glance. Nimue dipped her scarf into the stream to clean her face.

"Are
you
aware," he said in a voice more quiet than usual, "that we are being watched? Don't look.
I said
..." He sighed in exasperation.

Too late. The figure just beyond the fringe of the clearing had seen her sudden turn. For a moment their eyes met. The cold water from Nimue's scarf ran down her arm and onto her skirt. "Romola!" she said, before the innkeeper's daughter turned and disappeared into the trees. Nimue scrambled to her feet, almost fell on the slippery wet pebbles, and raced into the woods after her.

"Romola," she called again. They weren't
that
far from where they should be and she didn't want to attract unnecessary attention. She slowed to a walk, then stopped entirely. In the silence, a squirrel bounded up a tree, its tiny nails clicking on bark. A bird, too far off to identify, shifted from one branch to another and sent a leaf into a slow downward spiral.

Nimue took a hesitant step. "Romola?" It came out a bare whisper. She knew she couldn't be mistaken—it had been Romola. The question was, what was she doing here?

Directly above her, a thrush must have decided that the excitement was over and burst into song. Nimue jumped. She glanced back the way she had come: no sign of the clearing anymore.

Nor of Mordred for that matter.

A mayfly seemed intent on nesting in her hair, and Nimue brushed at it, then took another step. Backwards this time. From her right, a wildly overgrown area, came a muffled scream.

"Mordred!" she yelled back toward the clearing. From the direction of the scream, a crackle of underbrush approached her, but she wouldn't retreat any farther. "Mordred!" The bushes directly beside her stirred, and a mailed arm fought back the branches.

But it was Mordred after all who broke through from that unexpected direction, apparently having stealthily circled around while she blundered through the middle. He had one hand over Romola's mouth and the other held up to caution silence.

Romola kicked him hard behind the knee. The pitch and tone of her muffled voice changed from protest to outrage as her bare foot made contact with armor.

Mordred shifted her from side to front. "Friend of yours?" he asked Nimue.

Nimue nodded.

"Well then, tell her—" Mordred broke off and yelped a startled curse in Cornish. He had removed his gauntlets to examine the horse, and now Romola's teeth had sunk into exposed flesh. He resisted the reflex to let go, instead snapped her head back and slid his mailed wrist into her mouth.

Nimue winced. "Don't hurt her."

"
Don't hurt
..." he started to repeat. His voice dropped. "Just tell her," he almost whispered, "if she does
not
stop this noise, I am going to get that nasty little dirk I took from her and start cutting off her fingers, one by one."

"Oh, stop that." Nimue took Romola's arm and gently pulled her away. "Now you've frightened her."

Mordred glowered.

"Sir Mordred would not really harm you," Nimue said with earnest hope that she tried to pass off as certainty. Mordred had been nothing but distandy polite so far, but there were Merlin's warnings...

"Traitor," Romola spat at her. Then to Mordred, "Pig."

"The two of you have been friends a long time, have you?" Mordred asked Nimue.

Inexplicably, Romola looked ready to kick and bite Nimue. "So you're one of them," she said venomously. "We wondered where you'd disappeared to. Why'd you do it? What do you want with my Dolph?"

It took several long moments for Nimue to realize what she meant. "Oh, Romola! I never ... This isn't..." She started from the point that could get her furthest. "I didn't 'disappear': I went to get help. Sir Mordred wasn't one of those knights." She considered how best to explain identifying devices and colors to the peasant girl, decided instead that Romola would just have to take her word for it. "Those knights were from Castle Ridgemont over at Ravens' Rock. Sir Mordred is from Camelot."

Romola hugged her arms to herself and kept from looking overly impressed. "The Kings court, then? One of Arthur's men?"

Mordred flashed a smile that was a bit too charming.

Romola looked at him skeptically. "So he's it, eh? One knight? And not especially big, is he?"

Mordred kissed her hand. "No, really," he murmured, "the pleasure is all mine."

She snatched her hand away, a heartbeat or so too late for the proper effect.

"Besides," he said, "the next logical question is, what are
you
doing here?"

"They stole Dolph, my man."

"Plan to rescue him, do you?"

If it had been anyone else, Nimue would have given him a good hard pinch for his constant goading.

Romola finally let drop the hand Mordred had kissed. "Well, of course I'm not going to stand at the gate of this Castle Ridgemont and yell for them to give me back their prisoners. I got me a wagonload of beer and ale, and that'll get me inside." She shook her head to get her hair, which was black and very curly, out of her eyes.

"Getting inside is not the problem," Mordred told her.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what there is to see before I can plan any farther, won't I?"

Mordred looked as close to laughing as Nimue had seen him. "I guess," he agreed.

"It's not a bad plan," Nimue said.

Mordred glanced at her, then turned and headed back toward the clearing without comment.

"Camelot?" Romola asked.

Nimue nodded, but noticed that Romola looked down at her kissed hand once more before following.

Besides the soft leather undergarments worn under armor, Mordred had a change of clothes in his pack. But, although rather plain for a nobleman, they were too fine to pass as a peasants. Luckily, Romola found an old shirt of Dolph's in the wagon, and an even older set of breeches.

Mordred, however, chose to be difficult.

"It stinks," he protested, dropping the shirt.

"You'll get used to it," Nimue told him. "You'll need it if you want to pass yourself off as a tradesman."

Romola snorted, just in case anyone wasn't already aware of her opinion.

Mordred poked gingerly at the shirt. "You are a wizard," he said to Nimue. "Why can't you magically change my appearance? That way we could be sure no one would recognize me,
and
I would have the protection of the armor."

Nimue shook her head. "I can only alter my own self"

"Merlin could do it."

"I am not Merlin."

He opened his mouth, but then bit back his answer, which was a wise choice.

It worked out that Mordred was bigger in the shoulders, smaller in the waist and rump than Dolph, and shorter. He looked rumpled, which certainly wouldn't hurt matters, and belligerent, which
would.

Nimue pulled some of his dark hair onto his forehead, then tied it down with a twisted length of rag. "There, what do you think?" she asked Romola.

"Be still, my heart," Romola answered flatly. "I think I'm in love."

Mordred threw down the cloth and shook the hair out of his eyes. "If you think
that
will stop Halbert from recognizing me—"

"For the moment I'm not worried about Halbert," Nimue put in. "I'm concerned about getting you beyond the castle guards who have orders to take all the comely young men they see."

Unexpectedly, Mordred blushed. His distant manner kept making Nimue forget that he was, in fact, the same age as she—twenty-two. But even as his sudden extra color reminded her of his youth, it showed up for the first time the faintest hint of a thin scar along his cheekbone. And that gave her an idea.

She stooped down and mixed two handfuls of dirt, the black river silt with some red clay.

Mordred watched warily, but offered no objection. She used her muddy finger to paint a dark streak across his cheek. It would be nice, she thought, if when the mixture dried it puckered the surrounding skin to add to the illusion of a badly healed gash. Not that she would
wish
such a thing—she most definitely did
not
wish such a thing, for it might result in a real scar or, worse, a circumstance that would result in a new wound. She smiled encouragingly, but he had retreated into one of his sulks.

With the rag back on to hold his hair, Mordred secured a knife under his breeches' leg and hid his sword in one of the worn brown blankets used to keep the beer kegs from banging into each other. This blanket he rolled up and put on the wagon seat as if it were padding for the rough road. The rest of his things he hid under a gorse bush.

Nobody asked what he thought were the chances that they would ever make it back here at all, never mind whether they could find that particular bush again.

He removed the saddle and harness and gave his horse a
whack
on the rump, for there was no way the fine gray destrier could be disguised as anything but a knights warhorse. Romola's wagon was pulled by oxen.

Nimue watched the horse sadly, wondering if it would ever make it back to Camelot; but if Mordred had any sentiments, they didn't show.

After covering up the last of his equipment with more branches, he reached to help Romola onto the back of the wagon.

"I can do it myself" Romola snapped at him.

"Of course you can," he said in a friendly tone.

The innkeeper's daughter looked away, then accepted his arm.

Mordred turned to Nimue. If he was surprised to find her suddenly looking like an aging crone, his face didn't show that either.

They arrived at Castle Ridgemont just before gate-closing, which was their intent.

Romola handled the talking, first with the guards, then with the seneschal in charge of supplies. With his new "scar," Mordred didn't seem to attract the guards' interest. No one gave him a second look as he gave the oxen a rubdown. Nimue didn't know if oxen were supposed to be rubbed down the way horses were, but guessed it couldn't hurt. She had made herself look fifty years older than she really was and watching Mordred—who may or may not have been acting foolishly by tending to the oxen—she decided to go further. If being an old woman was a good defense, how much better a mad old woman?

She began to rock back and forth in the wagon and picked at wisps of her white hair, all the while mumbling to herself: "It's a fine night for picking daisies. Why doesn't she hurry up, so we can find daisies before the cats eat them all up? Cats always eat up all the daisies, sneaky creatures that they are. Maybe I should check the wagon to make sure there are no cats hiding. There's one, trying to disguise itself as my foot!" She swatted at her foot. "Damn daisy-eating cat." She continued rocking, and hoped—didn't wish, but
hoped
—Romola would hurry up.

Romola spoke to the seneschal for a long time, made longer by the fact that they were too far away to hear what was being said. But Nimue could see her rest her hand on the man's arm and laugh brightly. When she finally returned to the wagon, she said, "I've struck a bargain."