Morning's Journey (13 page)

“It doesn’t,” Arthur allowed. “But Gyan and I, and Merlin and others are striving hard to make this alliance succeed. The Horse Cohort was always central to it, but now your ala has become the key. The other alae will be watching how the Fifth reacts.”

“They already have been,” Merlin said ominously. “There’s been talk. One cannot walk through the mess hall without hearing it.”

“So you see, Airc, I need you, Gyan needs you—Brydein and Caledonia need you and your men to put this incident behind you.”

“I understand, my lord. But perhaps you will understand how hard a task we face once you see Mathan for yourself.”

“I intend to. Lead on, Centurion.”

He followed Airc back to the prison entrance, past the guards, and into the corridor that led to the infirmary.

Merlin kept pace beside him. “Airc has a point, Arthur,” he whispered. “I don’t envy you.”

“Being Pendragon doesn’t always mean making popular decisions, only the right ones,” Arthur replied. “You taught me that, Merlin.”

His mentor’s only reply was a low grunt.

They fell silent but for their footfalls. Through knotholes in the floorboards rose the stink of sweat and vomit and offal, which the torches’ smoke failed to mask. The prisoners’ muffled moans and cries seemed to grow more urgent as Airc, Merlin, and Arthur passed overhead. Scotti warriors captured on Maun earlier in the summer accounted for most of the current inmate population, along with a large band of highwaymen and several criminals from the surrounding countryside whose offenses or belligerent natures made them too dangerous to be imprisoned anywhere else.

A legion soldier spent time incarcerated here only to wait for the convening of his military tribunal, as Urien should have done with Mathan.

Scratch that. Urien should have accepted Mathan’s apology.

Passing the stairs leading to the solitary-confinement pits, Arthur wished he could bury Urien down there and melt the bloody key.

At the infirmary’s door, Merlin explained their intent to the guard. The man saluted, unhitched the huge iron ring from his belt, selected a key, and unlocked the door. Once Merlin, Airc, and Arthur had stepped inside, the guard closed the door. Arthur quelled a momentary rush of panic as he heard the key turn in the lock.

Oil lamps suspended from the ceiling barely punctured the gloom. Arthur squinted at the beds, whose occupants lay chained to the frames, coughing, snoring, wheezing, thrashing, or groaning. The pungent smells of blood, urine, and valerian clotted the air.

Several burly orderlies glanced up from their tasks as Arthur and his party entered. While not garbed for guard duty, these men looked fully capable of subduing an unruly patient with martial as well as medical means.

Airc crossed the room to a bed beneath one of the barred windows. Arthur and Merlin followed him to take position on the bed’s opposite side. The patient lay on his stomach, his head facing away. His breath came in short hisses, as if he’d fallen asleep while gritting his teeth against the pain. Airc bent close to Mathan’s face and gently shook him awake.

“Mathan,” Airc said. “Visitors.”

“Go away,” came the despondent murmur.

Mathan turned his head anyway, noticed Merlin and Arthur, and struggled to push himself up. The blanket fell away to reveal a mass of bandages so badly blood-soaked that Arthur couldn’t tell where one whip mark ended and the next began.

Mother of God.

“Stay down, Mathan,” Arthur said, curbing his fury. “Orderly!” All of them hurried to Mathan’s bedside. “Why haven’t this man’s bandages been changed?”

“He won’t let us, Lord Pendragon,” the nearest orderly said.

“Every time they try, it feels like they’re killing me.” Mathan sighed. “Although if they did, it would be a mercy for me. And a relief for everyone else.”

“Not true, Mathan.” Arthur squatted to Mathan’s level. “Your ala needs you. I need you. And you know Gyan would be devastated.”

“Chieftainess!” Again he struggled to rise, and again Arthur bade him to stop. “Is she here, my lord?”

“No. But she wanted to be, with all her heart. Will you let these men tend you, for her sake?”

With a groan, Mathan buried his face in the pillow, his shoulders heaving. Arthur nodded to Merlin, who sent the orderlies after fresh bandages, water, salve, and a painkiller-laced sleeping draught.

When Mathan finally looked at Arthur again, his eyes were red-rimmed and wet. “I have failed. Her, you, Airc, the ala, the clan—everyone.”

“You succumbed to temptation and struck a superior officer,” Arthur corrected him. “You have already paid a hundredfold.”
At least.
He laid a hand on Mathan’s forearm and squeezed. “The only way for you to fail is to succumb to self-pity.”

Surprise contorted Mathan’s face. “What? You—you mean I don’t have to stay here, in this prison?”

“Only for as long as it takes for your back to heal, and then you may resume your normal duties.”

“Truly, sir? But Tribune Urien said—”

“Forget what Urien said, Mathan.” Again Arthur’s anger strained at its bonds. He stood to address Airc. “Have Tribune Urien report to my workroom in the praetorium at once.”

As Airc saluted and made his way to the door to request egress, the orderlies returned. One toted a sloshing bucket of water, another balanced a load of bed linens beneath a salve pot and bandage rolls, and a third man carried a pitch-sealed leather mug and a short, smooth stick. He bent to give Mathan the draught while the other two set their burdens aside and began peeling off Mathan’s bloody bandages.

Mathan grimaced; whether from the draught’s bitterness or the orderlies’ ministrations on his back, Arthur couldn’t tell. The man with the bucket sluiced water over bandages that had become crusted to the wounds. Pale crimson streaks marred the bed linens and dripped to the floor on both sides of the cot.

After Mathan finished the brew, the orderly took the mug and offered Mathan the stick, but Mathan waved it away. “Lord Pendragon, I—I don’t know how to thank you.” Mathan’s eyelids drooped.

“Heal yourself, Mathan,” Arthur said. The last of the bloody bandages peeled away to reveal a morass of raw welts, most still oozing.
Mother of God!
Arthur sucked in a breath. “Return to your ala stronger in body and spirit, ready to give your best for me and for Gyan. That’s all the thanks we need.”

“Aye…m’lord…” This came no louder than a murmur as the valerian bore Mathan into its dreamless realm.

Merlin sketched the sign of the cross over Mathan’s form while the orderlies bathed the wounds, gently blotted them dry, and applied fresh salve and bandages. Once they finished binding his back, two orderlies lifted him—grunting and straining against Mathan’s deadweight bulk—while the third replaced the bloody linens with fresh ones.

After they eased Mathan onto the cot, Arthur drew one of the orderlies aside. “See to it that he keeps receiving the best of care.” The man nodded vigorously. “Until further notice, his only visitors are to be his ala commander, the garrison commander”—Arthur aimed a glance at Merlin—“and myself.”

“Understood, Lord Pendragon.”

Arthur motioned for Merlin to join him. When they reached the infirmary’s locked door, Arthur tried to release anger through the force of his pounding. It didn’t help much. After the guard unlocked and opened the door, Arthur shouldered past him and set a grueling pace toward the praetorium, his rage and frustration mounting with each stride.

As they neared the praetorium’s fountain, Merlin stopped him. “Do you want to talk to Urien alone?”

An extraordinarily tempting idea, in fact, but, “No.”

Merlin frowned but didn’t press for an explanation. They passed the perimeter guards, entered the building, and turned down the corridor toward Arthur’s workroom. Their footfalls echoed off the marble. The oil lamps fastened to the walls guttered in their wake.

Arthur reached the workroom’s antechamber and flung open the door. It hit the wall with a resounding thud.

Urien flinched. He stood with his back to the set of shelves where Arthur’s aide stored the cohort reports. Nothing seemed to be amiss, either with Urien’s uniform or the stacks of parchment behind him, though Urien probably had ample warning of Arthur and Merlin’s arrival. Splotched across the left side of Urien’s jaw, Arthur noted with secret satisfaction, was a purpling bruise.

“Explain yourself, Tribune,” Arthur snapped.

“With regard to what?”

Arthur stalked closer. “Do not play games with me, Urien map Dumarec.”

“Or—what?”

“Or I will kill you where you stand.”

“And lose my father’s support?” Urien sneered. “You don’t have the ballocks.”

Arthur gave Urien such a hard uppercut that he stumbled against the shelves, scattering parchment everywhere. Urien righted himself, his fists cocked and eyes blazing fury.

“Go ahead, Tribune.” Grinning, Arthur jutted his jaw and pointed at his chin. “Give me an excuse to flay your back to the bone.” When Urien muttered an oath and eased his stance, Arthur said, “Now look who’s lacking ballocks.”

“If you have a point to make,” Urien growled, “then make it.” He knuckled a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “Sir.”

“Your gambit has not earned you dismissal from the legion. You will remain at headquarters as cavalry prefect. I expect top performances from you and your men. If you so much as spit where you shouldn’t, then when I’m through with you, not even the worms will be interested in what’s left.” Arthur folded his arms and creased his brow. “Do I make myself clear, Tribune?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good.” Arthur jerked a nod toward the door. “Get out of my sight.”

Merlin stepped aside to let a sullen Urien pass. After the door shut, Arthur dropped into the chair behind Marcus’s worktable, the emotions and lack of sleep overtaking him in a rush. He braced his forehead against his left fist and sighed.

“Was all of that really necessary, lad?” Merlin asked as he bent to retrieve the parchment Urien had knocked from the shelves.

“I’m sorry you had to see it. But I needed a witness.” Arthur lifted his head and briefly massaged his right hand. “He deserves a hell of a lot more.”

Merlin straightened to deposit the leaves on the table. “Have a care, Arthur. Urien will not remain your subordinate forever. When his father dies—”

“I know.” Wearily, Arthur reached for ink, parchment, and a quill. Before he began writing, he spent a long moment staring at the ceiling. “May God deliver us all from that day.”

Chapter 8

T
HE NEWS FROM Arthur, brought by courier the following day, was maddeningly vague in some ways and yet all too clear in others.

“Problem temporarily solved” was all Arthur would divulge about his confrontation with Urien. Gyan wondered what “temporarily” meant, aside from the fact that nothing could be permanently resolved with Urien until he drew his final breath and became the One God’s problem.

Although her consort didn’t say it in so many words, she knew better than to expect any more visits from him. And although the Sasunach threat hadn’t materialized yet—the West Sasunaich were fortifying Anderida, but the scouts had not seen any signs of troop buildup—she refused to desert her post merely to satisfy the whims of her heart, however tempting those whims might be.

Arthur did report that her clansman’s wounds would heal, along with the unit’s morale, which made her doubly grateful. Even so, he had given her far more questions than answers, underscoring the fact that she should be at headquarters, not languishing in an extraneous command on an insignificant spit of an island a hundred miles away.

Resisting the urge to rip the parchment into oblivion, she slapped it onto the stack destined for reuse and stood. She briefly considered the idea of penning a reply but knew it would be colored by her frustration. She needed to clear her head.

She entered the antechamber, where Rhys sat at his table, copying a report from the clay work tablet to parchment.

“Commander? Something wrong?”

She paused long enough to say, “I need a sparring partner. Get some practice weapons from the armory. I’ll meet you at the stables.”

His obedience registered as a grunt of affirmation and the sound of his chair scraping across the tiles.

Gyan picked up a fistful of carrots from the kitchens for Macmuir and Rhys’s mare. Rhys arrived at the stables as she was dispensing the treats. She took the practice sword from him and expressed her thanks. They saddled and bridled their mounts in companionable silence, which she appreciated. Angusel would have spouted a stream of questions she had no desire to answer.

They mounted and rode to the cavalry field, where First Turma was engaged in horseback javelin-casting drills. To stem rumors, Gyan had risked further estrangement between her Caledonach and Breatanach troops to inform them of the tensions at headquarters. A pity, she thought as she surveyed the turma, that the Breatanach foot soldiers trained on the north fields. Witnessing her performance might have helped bolster their confidence.

“Your turn, Commander.” Winking, Rhys brandished a javelin.