Bedivere scowled. He slapped his hand into hers and let her help him up. “This is not the end of the matter,” he growled, holding his hand to his stomach
“It is for tonight,” Mair told him sweetly and patted his cheek.
“You don’t understand, Mair…” Lucan began.
Bedivere shook his head. “Of course she does not. She cares nothing for Corneus and its concerns.”
“We are back to that?” Mair rolled her eyes at her brother’s relentlessness.
“That is all there is,” Bedivere growled. “Eurig has been missing for six days…did you even notice, Mair?”
Mair glanced over her shoulder toward the fires. The tall, spare Corneus lieutenant usually slept close to the pavilions, where he could be called upon as needed. He was not at his campfire.
“Or were you too busy with your war games in the forest?” Bedivere asked, his tone withering. “With Eurig gone, and you gone, I must pull Lucan away from the council to lead the men.”
Lucan looked just as unhappy as Bedivere.
Mair pressed her fingers to her mouth. “No, you cannot. It would weaken the shield around Arthur, in battle.”
“Precisely,” Bedivere replied, his tone dry. He straightened up carefully and drew a full breath and let it out. “I’m glad you appreciate that much, sister. Think on it while you sleep.”
He didn’t say farewell. Lucan only grimaced as he followed his brother back to the command tent and the nightly circle of senior officers.
The men around the campfire still watched, only now their stares seemed like accusations.
Chapter Fifteen
It was a fact which Merlin had absorbed and learned to count upon that grievously wounded men tended to let themselves slip away in the long, drawn-out hours of the night, when the human will was at its lowest ebb.
In the days after a battle, Merlin would linger in the surgery through those still hours. Great effort and huge skill were not needed to help the wounded at these times. A simple word, a gentle touch, was often enough. Sometimes, a sleeping draught would see them through.
Most good physicians learned this through observation over time, so it was not a great surprise to Merlin when Morgan slipped into the surgery well past the middle of the night, in her dark, simple gown. She bent to speak to the wounded in a soft voice. She straightened blankets and soothed brows, murmured in gentle cadences.
Merlin stayed at his end of the surgery and out of the way. He watched from the corner of his eye. He wondered if Gandar, Arthur’s appointed physician, would find his way here, too.
There were few wounded still lingering in the surgery after Maisbeli. Those who still required care were the worst of the injured, or patients with complications.
Merlin’s gaze flickered toward Lowri. The queen laid on a pallet in a far corner, the only woman in the surgery. Her simple wound had festered because cloth had entered it. Likely, the Saxon blade had not been clean, either. By morning, she would have turned a corner and would recover…or not.
Bricius, Lowri’s older brother, sat beside her pallet, watching over her. The seasoned warrior had appeared at the edge of the surgery only a while ago, his shoulders stiff with anger and his expression shuttered. With a nod to Merlin, he had settled himself beside his sister and now sat with his head down, examining his hands, and soothing Lowri’s brow.
Merlin continued along the row of pallets, stopping to talk to the men who were still awake, and to check on those who slept. There were three men he wanted to keep a close eye upon until dawn arrived. He might sit beside them for a while. Even if they could not see or hear them, the sick were often comforted by the presence of another.
The moon had set. The chill of pre-dawn was in the air when Merlin saw another shadowy figure step onto the surgery floor. Lancelot had his dark cloak wrapped around him against the chill. It made him a ghostly shape, emerging from the wisps of mist.
His arrival did not surprise Merlin. Few in the army knew of Lancelot’s long hours in the surgery, when he professed an inability to sleep and a need for distraction. Lancelot would unerringly steer his way toward the most ailing of the patients and, like Bricius, would settle beside them. Sometimes he talked. Sometimes, he remained silent. Occasionally, he would hold a hand or soothe a brow.
Merlin couldn’t recall any of the men Lancelot visited dying, afterward.
He had heard the chatter about Lancelot’s implacable will upon the battlefield and had seen him at work for himself. A man so well-versed in dealing out death would naturally be drawn to the other side of that equation—the prevention of death. Lancelot might have made a superior physician, had he been given the choice, for he had the gift of healing, although he was not aware of it. Not yet.
Lancelot did not immediately settle beside a patient. Instead, he moved over to where Merlin was sitting.
Merlin got to his feet as Lancelot nodded a greeting. Lancelot’s dark eyes were somber.
“If you can spare a few minutes to spend with Ofydd, it would save me having to split myself in three this night,” Merlin told him.
“I will be pleased to,” Lancelot said.
“You are not the only one who cannot sleep tonight,” Merlin said, spreading his hand to take in the surgery. Gandar had arrived not long ago.
“Tonight, though, the cause for my disturbed sleep is more than an overworked mind,” Lancelot said. He turned to look at Bricius and Lowri. “There is a small family matter I must attend to, so my mother may sleep, too.”
Merlin hid his smile. “If you intend to ask Bricius what his intentions are toward Elaine, it makes you the only man in the camp who cannot guess.”
The corner of Lancelot’s mouth turned up. “Oh, I can guess well enough. It is Bricius who needs the clarity.”
Merlin laughed, keeping it soft. “Try to explain it in a way which preserves his dignity, hmm? Broken heads I can mend. Broken men are beyond my ability.”
Lancelot pressed his fingers to the center of his chest. “I? I am the pinnacle of subtlety.”
It brought even more laughter to Merlin’s lips.
“For my mother’s sake, I will restrain myself,” Lancelot added, with a wink. He moved around the pallet and wound his way toward Bricius.
Halfway across the surgery, Morgan waylaid Lancelot, her small hand resting on his forearm. Lancelot paused with a polite expression, looking down at her with what appeared to be an unstudied smile.
Merlin considered moving closer to eavesdrop, for he didn’t like Morgan plying her wiles upon one of Arthur’s dearest friends. Nothing in the stars warned him to intervene. It was simply his instincts as a man, having seen the abuses of power all his life.
He stared openly at the pair as Morgan murmured to Lancelot. Her expression was light and lovely, her eyes limpid. If she stood a little too close to him, it could be blamed upon the narrow aisle between the pallets.
Lancelot’s smile didn’t shift by an inch. He appeared to be as charmed as Morgan intended.
Merlin’s heart hurried faster than it should. Perhaps there was something in the stars he should heed, after all. A nameless dread settled over him as he watched the pair.
When Lancelot shook his head, Merlin’s relief was so great, he shuddered with it.
Morgan did not give up all at once. Her fingers stroked artlessly over Lancelot’s arm and up to his shoulder, as she spoke. Merlin heard the coaxing note in her voice.
Lancelot, though, seemed to have the measure of her now. He took a long step back from her, while still smiling. It forced her hand to drop away from his arm. He gave her a deep, respectful bow.
Then he turned on his heel and stepped around pallets, over to where Bricius sat with Lowri.
As Lancelot clapped Bricius on the shoulder and dropped beside him, to cross his legs and talk in a low voice, Morgan watched him, her eyes glittering with unnamed emotion.
Merlin thought he could guess what that emotion might be. When she turned her chin to meet M
erlin’s gaze, as if she had known he watched all along, he reconsidered.
Morgan smiled. It was a cynical expression. She knew she had lost the first sally. Her smile said it would not be her last effort, either.
Over her shoulder, out where the dawn mist swirled cool fingers through the camp, Accolon stood. His normally smooth golden hair was ruffled and he was barefoot. The cloak around his shoulder hung in odd folds, as if he had wrapped it around him the same way he had picked it up.
He stared at Morgan, fury and pain in his eyes.
IT WAS COLD THE NEXT morning, with the first mist in days wreathing everything with damp fingers. Mair heard men around the campfires complaining about the cold, the food, the lack of wine and more.
They were restless. Eurig had been missing for days. They had been without direction for all that time. Idleness sapped energy and spirits.
Mair strapped on her sword and her full armor, as she would for a battle. She pinned her hair tightly, using the sharpened combs to capture stray ends. She dropped the second blade into her boot, then moved out of the tent and straight over to the closest fire. It was the fire Eurig slept besides, when he was here.
The three men hunched around it, peering into the stewpot hanging over it, all looked up at her with widening eyes.
“My Lady?” Parry’s tone was startled rather than enquiring. He was an older man, his hair grizzled on the sides and with soft gray eyes. He was Eurig’s friend. They always fought side by side, although Eurig was the leader, while Parry was content to follow.
“What is in the pot?” Mair asked Parry.
“Porridge, my Lady. No apricots or berries, though. No honey, neither.”
“That’s not good. Why is there no honey?”
Parry settled back. “Someone let the bucket go empty.”
“Who is responsible for ensuring there is enough honey?”
Parry frowned. “I don’t rightly know. Mostly, whoever Eurig tells to take care of it.”
“Then I am telling you now, Parry. You are to take charge of the honey and the fruit and make sure there is always enough, at all times. See to it now. Ask Cai’s second to tap the barrel they keep and fill the bucket.”
Parry looked startled.
“Now would be a good time,” Mair added. “We are all hungry, not just you.”
Parry scrambled to his feet and moved to the cart where the buckets and sacks of food were stored under waxed cloth, to get the honey pail. Mair looked over the other Corneus campfires and the men around them.
She addressed the last two men at this fire. “Nye, Iwan, move out to the other fires. Tell everyone they must eat well this morning. Bread and meat—dried meat if that is all there is—and we will fix that later, if that is the case. Good food, hot wine and full bellies. They will need it.”
“My Lady?” Nye stared as if she had spoken in Saxon.
“Did you not hear me?” Mair asked, keeping her tone cool.
“Aye, I heard you. I just don’t understand.”
“You will understand soon enough. Tell everyone. They are to eat a good breakfast, see to their horses, then be ready to leave after that. Snap to it.”
The pair scrambled.
While they passed from fire to fire, stirring up the men with her order, Mair returned to her tent and found the wooden bowl and spoon she used while traveling. She took it out to the fire, scooped some unadorned porridge into her bowl and ate it, while watching the flurry of activity about the fires and the food cart.
Now the men were moving with energy.
Some sent her puzzled looks. She recalled Lancelot’s dismissal of the opinions of others. Like Lancelot, Mair also had a purpose, this morning. She ignored the baffled air rising from the camp.
Mair stayed seated upon the log while the men moved over to the rope lines and fed and watered their horses, brushed and cared for them. They spoke fast and hard. They wondered what she was up to.
When everyone returned to the fire, wound their cloaks, pinned them and picked up their shields, Mair got to her feet. “Nye, Iwan, Parry, you and the men fall in behind me.”
She moved passed them and led them to the clearing.
The clearing was empty of people, for it was still early. The war council would still be in session. When they were here in Venta Belgarum, the matters to be discussed and decided in the council increased, for they included administrative concerns and tedious detail. Bedivere complained about the endless trivia they dealt with and the petty complaints they were forced to listen to.
Bedivere always preferred to sort things out with his sword, in fine Corneus tradition.
The men gathered in the middle of the big clearing, watching Mair with half-amused expressions.
Mair drew her sword. “Dylan, step forward.”
Everyone looked at the tall man she had addressed. Dylan, unlike Perry, was a leader of men. What Dylan did, most of the others would fall in with. He was an informal spokesman for the rank and file.
As Dylan drew his sword with a puzzled smile, Mair move toward him, brandishing her sword. “You all witnessed me drop Bedivere to the ground last night,” she told them. “Some of you might think it was luck. It wasn’t. Dylan, attack me.”
Dylan lowered his sword point, which he had been holding out in the classic guard position. “I don’t want to hurt you, my Lady.”
Mair stopped three paces away from him. “Then who is man enough to fight me?” She lifted her voice. “Who is the strongest among you?”
As she already knew the answer, Mair waited.
Dylan rubbed the back of his neck. “That would be me.” He echoed the others’ murmured comments.
Mair launched herself at him. An attack would force him to defend himself. He got his sword up, but that was all. She slid around it and slapped the flat side of her blade against his cheek, with a loud smacking sound.
“If I was a Saxon, your head would be rolling on the ground,” Mair told him.
Laughter sounded. Mair rounded on them. “If you can do better than Dylan, then take his place. Right now.” It was important Dylan not lose their respect.
No one spoke or moved.
Mair beckoned to Dylan. “Again.”
He gripped his sword, his knuckles white, and ran at her. Mair went happily to work.
When she had dropped him three times, when both cheeks were red from being slapped by metal and his knee numb from rapping her sword hilt against it, Mair paused. “Shall we stop?”
Dylan pressed his spare hand on the uninjured knee, supporting himself as he bellowed. He nodded, for he didn’t have the breath to spare for speech.
No one laughed this time. No amusement showed in any face.
Mair turned to them. “You can all learn to fight as I do. I will teach you.”
Parry, the man with no imagination, said doubtfully, “Ain’t that Lancelot’s funny way of fighting?”
“It is,” Mair said. “Although there is nothing funny about it. I bested Bedivere, and now Dylan. I am a woman and weaker than any man here. If I can do that, imagine what you can do. If a new type of fighting gives you the power to hew every Saxon in your path, why would you not want to learn it?
Some of the men nodded. The others frowned, working their way through her reasoning.
Mair moved between them to the higher side of the clearing, where everyone could see her. “Form lines,” she told them. “The reach of a sword apart, facing me.”
Moving slowly, with lingering doubt, the men shuffled into rough lines.
Mair drilled them as the sun rose higher, then peeked into the clearing. By then, all their doubts had evaporated and the men experimented and adapted to the new style.
After drills, she had them gather about as they fought each other two at a time. After each flurry, she broke down the movements and pointed out better tactics, then made them repeat the sequence.
It was absorbing work, and it was satisfying to see the growing awareness in the men’s eyes, as the
y tested the power of the techniques for themselves. Because of her concentration on the task at hand, she failed to notice more men entering the clearing, taking up the southern end, which was clear.
After demonstrating for herself one of the powerful moves possible with the new way of fighting, Mair heard light clapping. She looked to the edge of the clearing and the direction of the clapping.
Lancelot stood with his shoulder to a tree trunk, smiling. At her glance, he straightened and bowed.
Mair laughed and turned back to the men, only to see that on the southern side, more than a dozen men had been watching her demonstration.
One of them was Rawn, and he was not smiling.
Chapter Sixteen
The full moon had come and gone when news from north and south reached Venta Belgarum at the same time, stirring the camp and stretching tension like skin over a drum.
Mair was training the Corneus army alongside the Queen’s Cohort, adapting the styles to suit their differing requirements. The work was interesting and it allowed Lucan to return to his proper place in the council. For that point alone, Mair suspected Bedivere remained silent about her flagrant dismissal of proper fighting. He didn’t protest about her training the Corneus men. He didn’t speak to her at all, although she knew he merely bided his time.
The protest, instead, came from Rawn.
When the sun was at its peak, the clearing slowly emptied of people, as they returned to the camp outside the city. As usual, Mair reported to Lancelot upon the day’s training and observations about the strengths and weaknesses she had observed in the fighters. Lancelot seemed to be able to remember every man’s and woman’s flaws and habits.
He listened with his head down, concentrating, nodding as she spoke, then glanced around the clearing. Mair did, too, and smothered the little gasp she made when she saw that Rawn stood a few paces away, clearly waiting for her to finish her conversation.
“Arawn Uther,” Lancelot acknowledged. “You trained well today.”
“It is a pity Brocéliande is not here to train, too,” Mair added.
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