The Hallowed Isle Book Four (14 page)

“Domina, I came here hoping to find safe harbor. But I have also found a queen. . . .”

Guendivar felt her own cheeks growing warm, but managed a gracious nod. “Medraut—” she called. She had not seen him, but she suspected he would not be out of earshot, and indeed it was only a moment before he appeared. “Escort our new admiral and help him to whatever he needs.”

When he had gone, she sat down on the bench once more, and with fingers that trembled a little, opened the leather tube and pulled out the vellum roll inside.

“My lady, I must write swiftly, for Theodoric wishes to catch the morning tide. He has a good reputation among the Goths, and seems a sensible man, but we here have no need for a navy. I give him to you for the defense of Demetia. Use him well.

“The Franks have marched more swiftly than I expected, despite the rain, and our supplies are getting low. Whatever you can send will be very welcome. The sons of Chlodovechus quarrel among themselves, but they can combine efficiently enough when they recognize an enemy. So far Theuderich, the eldest and most experienced among them, is still holding onto the leadership, even though he is not the son of Queen Chlotild, but of a concubine.

“Yesterday they brought us to battle, a hard-fought, muddy encounter that left no clear victor. We did not retreat
—
perhaps that may be counted as a victory. But it was costly. My nephew Aggarban was killed in the fighting, and there are many wounded.

“Riothamus still lives, but he is failing. Soon, I fear he will leave us, and I will have to decide whether or not to claim his sovereignty. I care for these people, and I believe that many of them have come to look to me with love and loyalty. But this is not my land. Last summer my journeys took me deep into Gallia, and there I found a town called Aballo, which in our tongue is the same as Afallon, the place of apples. And I closed my eyes, and saw the vale and the Tor so clearly I nearly wept with longing to be there. And you were there, standing beneath the apple trees.”

There was a break in the writing there, as if he had been distracted, or perhaps too overcome to continue. Guendivar found her own eyes prickling with unshed tears, and shook
her head.
How can you write such things
, she wondered angrily,
and not come home to me?
Wiping her eyes, she picked up the scroll once more.

“You will have to tell Medraut about his brother's death. About the boy himself, I do not know what to say. I did not understand him that season he was with me, and I cannot imagine what nine years among the Saxons have made of him. I can only trust that the powers that protect Britannia had some purpose in bringing him to birth.”

Once more there was a space. The writing that followed was smaller, and precise, as if he had been exerting all his control.

“You, my queen, are the one most wronged by his existence. If you, of your charity, will keep him by you I will be grateful, but if it seems better, send him away. I leave him in your hands.”

There was a blot on the page, as if he had started to write “
I wish
. . .” and then crossed it out. Beyond that she saw only the scrawled letters of his name.

“I wish!” Guendivar repeated aloud, glaring at the page and wondering whether this was trust or desperation. Should she be honored or angry? Either way, Medraut was her problem now. She would have to make another attempt to talk to him.

Artor, Artor, you have been too long away. What will it take to bring you home again?
She rolled up the vellum and slid it into its case once more.

Guendivar had intended to talk with Medraut that evening, but just as they sat down to their meal a messenger arrived. He was from King Icel, his news an attack on Anglia by raiders from the northern land that is called Lochlann in Eriu, and by the Romans Skandza. They had picked their way through the shoals of the Metaris estuary and struck southward through the fens, burning farmsteads and carrying off livestock, goods, and men. Icel did not precisely ask for aid— he had, after all, been given those lands on the understanding that he would defend them—but the implication that he would welcome some support was clear.

“Otherwise, he would have simply reported his victory,”
said Cai. “We must send a troop—enough men so they will know we have not abandoned them. I can raise some from my own country, and perhaps the Dumnonians—”

“Will send no men to aid Saxons, as you know very well!” Guendivar interrupted him. “And you are not going to lead them, whoever they are. I need you here!”

That was not entirely true, but Cai must know as well as she did that he was in no condition for campaigning. He did not protest her decision, and that worried her. In the past year he had grown short of breath, and his high color was not a mark of health. Cai refused to discuss his condition with her or with Merlin. To keep him from exhausting himself further was the most she could manage.

“The messenger will need a day or two to recover. I will think on what we may do.”

The queen was still worrying over the problem that evening when Medraut knocked at the door of the accounting house.

For the first time, she regretted allowing Gualchmai to go to Gallia. Or Theodoric to depart for Demetia—but the Anglians would not have been impressed by a Goth newly come to Britannia, no matter how good his navy. And she dared not send a Dumnonian prince, who was as likely to encourage the Northmen to attack Icel as to defend him. She needed someone of unquestioned British background who could deal with the Saxons.

“They are saying,” said Medraut as he entered, “that my brother Aggarban is dead.”

Guendivar set down the tax rolls she had been pretending to examine. “It is so. He died from wounds taken in battle. I am sorry.”

Medraut shrugged. “He was some years older, and left home when I was only five years old. I did not know him well.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Will you sit?” she asked finally, setting the scroll she had been pretending to read aside. “The nights are still chilly. I will ask Fulvia to bring us some chamomile tea.”

“Let me call her—” There was a hint of indulgence in Medraut's smile. He indicated the table covered with scrolls and wax tablets. “You have labored enough this evening already.” He rose and went to the door.

Guendivar kept her face still. In the past six years she had learned to recognize the subtle tension of manipulation. It was unusual to find such skill in a man so young, but she thought that constant practice had made her even more skillful at it than he.

“The Goth, Theodoric, brought letters from the king,” she said when Medraut had taken his seat once more.

“—my father,” he completed her sentence.

Guendivar lifted an eyebrow. Was that the way he wanted it? “The king your father has left it to me to decide whether to keep you here or to send you elsewhere.” She watched Medraut carefully, uncertain whether the tightening she thought she saw in his face came from the flicker of the lamp-flame or from unease.

But if she had worried him, he covered it quickly—when he lifted his head she saw the skin stretched across the strong, graceful bones of his face as smoothly as a mask.

“Since he has abandoned both kith and kingdom, it is fitting that his son, like Britannia, should be in the keeping of his queen. . . .”

“Say, rather, that he has left both in a mother's care . . .” she corrected blandly.

“Oh, pray do not!” Medraut's tone was sardonic, but she could see that she had shaken him. “You forget—my mother is Morgause!”

Guendivar blinked. She was only too aware how Morgause had damaged Artor—for the first time it occurred to her to wonder how she might have warped her son. She thought,
I will be the good mother Medraut never had
, and suppressed the anguished resentment that Artor had never allowed her to be the wife she should have been.

Medraut was still watching her, and Guendivar gave him a gentle smile. “Has your mother turned you against all women, then?”

He shook his head, lamplight sending ripples of flame
along the smooth waves of auburn hair. The grey gaze that was so like Artor's held her own. But as she met his eyes, she realized that the expression there was nothing like Artor's at all.

“And has my father turned you against all men, leaving you to lie in an empty bed for so many years?”

Guendivar stiffened. Medraut's voice was very soft, his eyes hidden now by the sweep of downturned lashes so that she could not tell whether sympathy or irony glimmered there.

“That is not a question you may ask of me!”

“Then who can?” He straightened, and now it was she who could not look away. “Who has a better right to question what happens in King Artor's bed than you and I? We have a unique relationship,” he said bitterly. “It was you, my lady, who chose to begin this conversation—you cannot take refuge in the ordinary courtesies now!”

Guendivar struggled to keep her composure. “It is clear,” she said tightly, “that you do not want another mother.”

“A mother?” He shuddered. “For that, you would have had to take me when I was born. But you were only six years old. Did you realize, my lady, how nearly of an age we are?” He reached out to her.

“What do you want, Medraut? What am I to do with you?” she said desperately, trying to forget that for a moment she had wanted to take his hand.

“Use me! Let me show what I can do, not as Artor's mistake or the tool of Morgause, but as myself, a prince of the line of Maximian!” he exclaimed. “Send me to the Anglians! Who else do you have who can understand them? They will not care about my birth, except to recognize that it is royal. There are stories of such matings in their own lore. With thirty men, or sixty, well-mounted, I could show them that the arm of Britannia is still long, even when her king is away!”

Guendivar could not fault his reasoning. But even as she agreed, she realized that it was not for his sake that she wanted him away, but for her own.

* * *

Medraut coughed as a shift in the wind brought the acrid reek of burning thatch. The black horse tossed its head uneasily and he jerked on the rein. The British had joined forces with Icel's men at Camulodunum and followed the trail of burnt farmsteads northward. And now, it would appear they had found the enemy. That same wind carried a singsong gabble of northern voices. He lifted his hand, a swift glance catching the attention of the British who rode behind him and the Anglian spearmen who marched with Creoda, a broad-built young man with ashy brown hair who was Icel's youngest son.

Creoda was the only one of Icel's children born in Britannia. He had been a boy during Artor's Anglian wars, brought up on his elder brother's tales of vanished glories. Medraut had not found it difficult to get him talking—he was much like the sons of the chieftains in Cynric's hall, enjoying the benefits of peace, but chafing because they had been born too late to be heroes. It was only when fending off marauders like these Northmen that they got the chance to fight at all.

Carefully they moved forward, the British on the road, the Anglians spreading out through the tangle of second-growth woodland where the old Roman fields were going back to the wild. Then the road curved, and suddenly the trees were gone. Beyond the young barley that the Anglian settler had planted in his home field they could see the burning farmstead.

Medraut yelled and bent forward, digging his heels into the black's sides. As the horse lurched into a gallop, he dropped the knotted reins on its neck, shrugged his shield onto his arm and plucked his spear from its rest at his side. He noted the bodies of the farmfolk without emotion, attention fixed on the foe. The raiders were dropping their booty and snatching up the weapons they had laid aside, but he had caught them by surprise. They were still scattered when the British hit them, stabbing and slashing with spear and sword.

The buildings were still smouldering when the fighting ended. Medraut drew a deep breath, grinning, exulting in the
rush of blood through his veins. It had been like this when he had ridden with Cynric to break up a fight between two feuding clans of Saxons—the tension before the conflict and the exaltation after, as if he were drunk on a dark mead of war. Growing up in the hulking shadows of his brothers, he had sometimes despaired of ever becoming a warrior—but Cynric had trained him well. Though he did not have Goriat's height or Aggarban's heavy muscles, he had learned to make full use of the swift flexibility of his lean frame.

A dozen northern bodies sprawled in the farmyard, blood and mud darkening their fair hair. The rest, near forty in number, stood together by the well, their weapons heaped before them, glaring at the circle of Anglian spearmen who had caught those who tried to flee. Two of Creoda's men had been killed and several wounded; one of the British had broken a leg when he was pulled from his horse. But Medraut himself had not a mark on him, while three of the fallen had died at his hand. He was
good
at fighting—a gift he owed neither to father nor mother, but to Cynric's teaching and his own hard-won skill.

He grinned savagely, surveying his prisoners.

“Does one of you have the Roman tongue?” he asked.

A young man with hair so pale it seemed white in the spring sunlight straightened. Medraut had already guessed him to be the leader from the gold armring he wore.

“
Appeto Galliam
—” he said in rough Latin, using a verb which could mean either traveling to a place or attacking it, to indicate that he had been to Gallia.

“That I can believe!” murmured one of the British.

“
Mercator
—” the Northman continued.
As a merchant
—

“And that, I do not believe at all!”

“Gippus, filius Gauthagastus regulus.”
The prisoner touched his chest.
Gipp son of Gauthagast. . . .