When the kind souls of Din Guardi had finished with him, Lance lay tucked up in his clean bedding, wound dressed, poultices and witch hazel applied. He was lost in thought. Art needn’t have run away from him. Lance had no easy answers, and was in no more of a hurry to pass judgement now than he had ever been.
That there was ice in Art’s nature, acquired since their brief spring at Vindolanda, Lance knew. He wasn’t sorry for it. It would keep Art alive longer than his boyish readiness to compassion, which Lance thought had probably been interred along with poor Sir Ector. And as for how Lance felt about women, he wasn’t sure he knew. Art had been wrong. He didn’t think them fragile and pure, to be set aside for those reasons. Nor were they less than men - impure, untrustworthy, and therefore also to be set aside.
Yet he was cold with shock, that Aedilthryd had been put to the sword. The kingdom of Britannia belonged to men. The scales had tipped, he believed, in his mother’s time. Something had died with her passing, though he couldn’t define the loss. What was gone? Sanctity, his mind told him. Sacred strength. The dragon...
He shivered: perhaps Garb's poisons were at work in him still. He was anyway too tired to think for long about anything. Arthur hadn’t tended him with coldness, hadn’t spent a sleepless week cajoling him back into life out of a ruthless heart. Right or wrong, that was enough for Lance. Art loved his friends blindly, and God help his enemies.
Sleep tugged at him, strong as spring tides. Curling onto his side, he let his eyes close in the bright sun that gilded Din Guardi, the Joyous Gard which was and always had been his own.
Chapter Seventeen
Battles breed legends—of cowardice and heroism, and things in between, small in themselves, growing large with the retelling. As well as the warriors’ tales, the battle for Din Guardi generated a short-lived ghost story.
It was Guy who first said that he and the men had heard children’s voices coming through the walls. From anyone else, Art might have dismissed such a story, but Guy was completely and comfortably without imagination, and so he set out with his brother and Lance to investigate.
They made their way along the seaward terrace, listening to the wind and the surf. It was Lance’s first venture outside in ten days, and the world seemed impossibly bright to him, the salty air intoxicating. He paused to lean on the parapet. Guy and Art stopped too, and took up their places—a pair of ill-matched, considerate bookends—on either side of him. “A little more to the left, Guy,” Lance said.
“What?”
“A little to the left. Then you’ll be shielding me properly from the wind.”
“Insolent,” Guy said happily, shifting to do as he was told. “It’s good to have you up and about again, Lance. Still, if you weren’t the heir to this place, I’d chuck you off this wall to feed the fish.”
Down on the plain far below, feverish activity was taking place. A dozen or so Anglian farmers in crimson tunics were sawing the branches and roots off an enormous trunk of oak. “What are they up to?” Lance asked dubiously. “Is that their new battering ram?”
“Oh, not a bit of it,” Arthur said, resting his elbows on the wall to watch. “Guy and I were busy while you were lazing about. We took a deputation into the nearest villages—on foot this time, so we wouldn’t look so Roman and stuck up. Even Coel came with us. We talked to some of the elders.”
“Wasn’t that a bit risky?”
“Oesa’s rebellion didn’t go far. Most of the people down there are happy enough with the treaties and trade arrangements we set up. We talked to the fellow who’s taken Oesa’s place asked about their daily lives and customs—and that, my dear Lance, is a Jol log. They all seem to call it different names depending on where they come from, but the idea is that they haul it with oxen right into their chieftain’s hut, place one end in the hearth, light it from the remains of last year’s log and burn it with great feasting and rejoicing over the next few days, to help bring back the sun.”
“Sounds like a good time. Perhaps we should get one.”
“You underestimate me. In Coel’s great hall right now—the sweetest fruits of my diplomacy so far, I think—is a trunk even bigger than that one, ceremoniously delivered last night with good wishes from the new chieftain himself. Coel wanted to saw it open and check no Anglians were hiding inside, but he accepted graciously, on the whole. He wants to leave you a peaceful kingdom.”
Lance made a sidelong study of his king. Strands of hair were escaping his braid and catching scarlet in the low sun. A smile was curling the corner of his mouth, and he looked much happier with his Jol log than with the results of all the hacking and slaying he’d done. “That was noble,” Lance said quietly. “To go down to them like that and talk.”
Art cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I thought it would please you. There’s something catching about their festivities, isn’t there, Guy? Even old Coel’s been infected. He wants us to have our own Jol-tide feast tomorrow night, which is the longest one, according to the cunning-women in the villages.”
“They’re right.” Lance didn’t question the deep conviction in his bones. “We used to celebrate that night too, with a great fire and feasting and an exchange of gifts.”
Arthur’s eyes kindled. “Gifts? What kind?”
“Modest ones,” Lance said hastily, afraid of what his generous lover might do. “Remember I’m already getting a castle this year.”
“If you live to inherit. You’re still looking peaked—we should get you indoors out of this blistering cold.” He straightened up, smiling. “As for you, brother, I think you and your soldiers have been at that barley rotgut you brew up in the camp. I can’t hear any children, inside the walls or out of them.”
They were turning away when the faint, eerie laughter rang out. Guy’s mouth fell open. “I told you,” he said. “It came from that direction. Come on!”
They searched all along the eastern wall, went inside and followed the line of it through the granary and store rooms. The sounds came again and again—laughter, and a wild, high chatter, somewhere between teasing and terror. But all they saw was an occasional rat, efficiently pursued through the barrels and bales by one of Coel’s brindled cats. Lance was glad to emerge into the sun. He still couldn’t quite catch his breath with ease, and hiding this from Art’s quick perceptions was taking him all his time.
At least he wasn’t alone in breathless pallor. Even Guy was looking around him, clearly unnerved. He said, faintly, “It’s surely just the village brats, playing tricks.”
“Must be,” Art agreed, and they stood disconcerted in the crystalline sea light, unwillingly hearing the inhuman babble continue.
Lance hesitated. Then, because it was a question he had to ask, he looked squarely at his king. “Art, what happened to Oesa’s children?”
“I don’t know. I thought they’d just run off during the battle.” Suddenly he too went white, in a mix of denial and anger. “I never laid a hand on them, Lance. And nor would any of my men.”