The Broken Kingdom: Episode Three: Arthur's Revenge by Donald Angus

Author:Donald, Angus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Igraine looked at her left hand, holding it up in the light of the candle. The fingers were trembling as if she had an ague, or as if she were a crone. It is fear, she thought. It is the cowardly fear of a weak and feeble woman. Stop it! Stop it now!

Because she was very afraid, indeed she believed she had never been more afraid in her whole life. She was about to do something that could not be forgiven. To commit a crime against her home and hearth, against her own people.

If she were caught, or if the plan was unsuccessful, and her actions became known, she faced death, a horrible death. She could, of course, simply not do this. She could go to her bed and sleep and pretend that this plan of hers, this agreement she had made, was nothing more than a dream, a delightful fantasy of revenge. She could turn her face to the wall, close her eyes tightly and pretend that it was not real.

But that would be even more cowardly. And she would not then be able to live with herself. This thing must be done. And she must do it. And do it quickly.

Igraine picked up the small leather pouch from the kitchen table in front of her and untied the thongs that secured the neck. She peered inside at the dark brown powder the pouch contained. Sniffed it. There was a faint smell of sage, and other herbs, and an undertone of something musky. Then she poured the contents of the pouch into the jug of mead which had been warming by the kitchen fire for the past hour and stirred it with a spoon. Then she threw the leather pouch into the heart of the fire. She put half a dozen clay cups on a wooden tray with the jug of hot mead, an old oil lamp with a hemp wick, and covered it all with a drying-cloth. She wrapped a shawl round her shoulders and walked out of the kitchen carrying the heavy tray.

Don’t think about this. Just do it. Think about something else, anything else.

As she walked across the muddy courtyard of the caer, she thought about Arthur. She wondered where he was. Gorlois had said he was in the north, something about killing some men of Rheged and being on the run. An outlaw. She hoped he was safe.

She hoped he would have the sense to find somewhere quiet to take refuge until all the fuss died down. Then she laughed silently to herself. That might be the most sensible thing to do but it was not Arthur’s way. He would likely seek to confront his accusers and, if he lost his famous temper, attack them without any fear whatsoever.

She remembered him so clearly as a fearless, questing infant, toddling about the great hall of King Uthur, inquisitive, restless, almost falling in the hearth-fire on more than one occasion. She remembered scolding him in her

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