Then the hut, or something, came shattering down on us. A thump, a moan, another thump and I was swept up again by the powerful arm of a single, swift runner who carried me off under his arm like a bundle of laundry.
The sack over my head came away, but I was in no position to turn around and see my courier’s face. The forest floor blurred beneath us as he ran away from the camp, deep into the woods, with desperate speed. I flailed my legs but to no avail. His grip only tightened and my legs scraped against the trees we passed. This one was crazy. This one would kill me. His strength was a thousand times that of the others.
He threw me to the ground. I hit the dirt head first, and came up dizzy. But I recognized the slits on his visor. He pulled off his helmet and waved it in the air, his blond curls falling around his shoulders.
“This is your magic?” said Lancelot. “You protect my king with a burning stick while allowing the Saxons to capture you?”
“You saved my life.”
“If I had thought they would kill you I would have left you there. But they would have him ransom you and I will not put him through it. You have no such value.”
“I’m grateful to you, Lancelot.”
He spat. “You are selfish. I do not care for your gratitude. If you survive tonight you must go. Return whence you came.”
“I can’t.”
“Were you banished?”
“Sort of.”
“This does not surprise me. I have no sympathy. If you stay in Arthur’s lands I will kill you.”
“But I’m not your enemy,” I said, pushing myself to my feet.
“You know things others do not know.”
“Medraut knows—”
“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 co
vered 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.
-----
A barefoot priestess, her robe the color of a mushroom, stepped in under the eaves of the small hut where I sat. “Vivien sends this,” she said, handing me a steaming cup. “Medicine. It’s strong.”
It would be, coming from Vivien. The high priestess, Vivien was the island’s ultimate power. I took the cup with my right hand because my left arm was in a sling. The priestess stepped aside to wait by the door.
Agravain and I sat in chairs, facing each other across a cot. Gareth lay between us, barely conscious and so weak it took all his energy to breathe. Agravain’s expression was unreadable as usual. He had bathed, as I had, and like me he wore a muslin robe much like that of the priestess. Though he and I had spent most of the last five days together he rarely made eye contact. Now, he watched with interest to see what magic I would exert over the cup.
>
I glared at the vessel. Gareth’s improvement had been slow to nonexistent. I was exhausted of my pretense and anxious for a way to stop it. But the intensity of Agravain’s gaze told me this was not the moment. I moved my lips in silent incantation, to whom I didn’t know: Please help Gareth, please take care of him, bring him back to health, save him, please!
I nodded to Agravain and he lifted his brother’s head. Gareth, who looked like Agravain’s ghost, took only a little of the medicine. Agravain laid Gareth back on the pillows and folded his strong hands in his lap to wait for the next time they might be of use.
Gareth’s injury had turned out to be a hole, the size of my fist, above his abdomen. When I finally saw it in daylight I almost fainted, something I thought only happened in old movies. Myrddin had snapped at me, insisting I collect myself and assist him as he treated it. At first my job had been to bring clean materials and wring the blood out of rags, but at the end Myrddin had me holding the skin together while he stitched.
“How’s the patient?” Myrddin peeked in from the sunny out-of-doors, letting his bass tones curl softly across the room.
“The same,” I said.
“Wait for me outside.” He’d been chilly toward me since we’d arrived on the island.
Agravain, his patience infinite, remained at his brother’s side. “Can I get you anything?” I asked him.
He shook his head. I knew from experience he wouldn’t leave Gareth, not even to eat. I’d send him something from the kitchen.
The priestess still waited by the door. Together we stepped out onto the threshold overlooking a broad meadow, the center of the settlement. A flock of grazing sheep took no notice of us.
Camelot & Vine Page 19
