Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Forgive me," I said, speaking in her own tongue, almost stammering in my discomfort, cursing myself for not even knowing how to address her. "I did not know . . . I came to thank you . . . for the boy."

A tiny frown ticked between her brows and her pale blue eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean, thank me? What did I do?"

"You saved his life."

"Oh, that." Her tone said that was insignificant. "Why now?"

"Why—?" The astonishment on my face must have been eloquent, for she took pity on me, although her voice remained heavy with hostility.

"That was months ago, and you came here days ago. Why do you seek me now?"

Poor Margaret was hovering in an agony of apprehension, her eyes flickering from one to the other of us as if afraid we might quarrel and come to blows there on her doorstep. I took a half step backwards and came to attention, bringing my clenched right fist to my left breast in a crisp, military salute.

"I was at fault in that, Domina," I said, speaking easily now that I had begun. "I should have come first to you, to give you my thanks, and those of my people, for your services to the child who is my heir. Without you, he would have died where we found him, starving among helpless men whose food was useless to him. We could not have saved his life, for all our so- called strength and power. You alone did that, and for that service I, and all my people, will be eternally grateful. That should have been my message to you, directly and in person, on the day we first arrived. That it was not so is something I shall always regret, since it reflects an ingratitude that was not really there. I know not what I was thinking of, to be so inconsiderate and uncivil. . . so ill-mannered . . . but I have no excuse. I can only ask your forgiveness and forbearance, and I stand here now to do precisely that."

As I spoke, I had watched the expression on her face change from haughtiness to puzzlement, then to a stirring anger as she began to think I was mocking her, and then finally to one of. . . what? It was not disdain, nor was it scorn, rather it was a combination of skepticism and barely disguised impatience with such foolishness. And still the small frown creased the center of her brows. Margaret, in the meantime, merely gazed at me wide-eyed with amazement at my sudden fluency.

"Hmm!" My mind scrambled to assign a description to Turga's grunt, but before I could define it, she spoke on. "You'll want to see him, I suppose, since he's your heir?" There was only the slightest emphasis on the last word, and once again, she left me wondering what her tone entailed. I nodded, suddenly afraid to say any more.

"If I may," I managed to say.

She turned away to Margaret. "I'll come back later, and I'll bring the salve." She glanced back at me, over her shoulder. "Come, then."

I followed her wordlessly to a hut three buildings down from where Margaret stood, still watching us, and she bustled inside and disappeared, leaving the door open behind her for me to follow. I stopped just beyond the threshold, blinking my eyes against the sudden darkness, and then, as my eyes adjusted, I saw the child's crib, a plain wooden affair on rockers, close by the fire that smoldered in the hearth. The woman was bent over in front of the fire, stirring the fuel to angry life, and a shower of sparks whirled upwards into the rough stone flue.

"He's asleep," she said, over her shoulder. "You can look at him, but don't wake him. He's not due for feeding for another hour."

I hitched my cloak back over my shoulders and crossed to the crib, where I bent forward, peering down at the baby who slept there. He was naked, except for a breechclout, and the unmistakable smell rising from it told me it needed to be changed. Turga's sigh startled me because it was so near. She had approached behind me and stood gazing down with me.

"He's a smelly little beast," she said. "A typical boy, all shit and shouting. Here, sit."

She held a three-legged stool in one hand, and now she placed it beside me. I mumbled a word of thanks and lowered myself to the seat, and she moved away again, back to the fireplace, where she piled several blocks of some kind of fuel on the fire.

"What is that stuff?" I asked. She twisted to look around at me, then grunted.

"Peat, they call it. They burn it all the time, here. They dig it up from the ground and dry it, then burn it. When I first came here, I couldn't stand the smell of it. Now I barely notice it. If he smells too rank, you can come and sit over here." She had a strange voice, for a woman, deep and gruff, and yet I sensed a tenderness there that her gruffness denied.

"No," I said, "I'm fine here. Do you . . . do you know who I am?"

The look she threw me was utterly sardonic. "Merlyn," she said. "Merlyn of Camulod, no? Like Uther of Camulod. Is he kin of yours?"

"He was," I replied. "He's dead. But he was never Uther of Camulod. He was Uther of Cambria, Uther Pendragon. He seldom came to Camulod."

She stood staring at me now, her face cold, her voice flint-hard. "Seldom came to Cornwall, either, the black whoreson, but he killed my man and my children, and Uther of Camulod was the only name I ever heard him called. I hope he died badly."

"He did," I said, chastened by her hatred of my cousin. "He died the day I first met you."

Now she frowned, clearly perplexed. "What are you saying? I never saw you before you came here."

"You did, Turga, but you don't remember it. I found you kneeling on the ground outside your house in Cornwall, mourning your family. Your baby was newborn. That's why I thought of you when we found Arthur starving. His mother was dead, and I knew your baby was dead. He needed milk and you needed to give suck. That's why we came back for you. You have no memory at all of that?"

She shook her head, her frown deepening. "No . . . or only very vaguely. The first memory I have is of feeding the child—this child, Arthur—by a fire on a beach. I didn't know where or who I was. Later, when we had crossed the sea, I remembered my own family, my man and my little daughter—" Her eyes filled with sudden tears and she wiped them away with the back of her hand, but her face remained expressionless. She drew a great, deep, sudden breath. "So, this boy . . ." She waved her hand towards the crib. "He is your heir, you say. Is that the word? What does it mean? Is he your son?"

"No, he is my nephew, and my cousin. His mother was my wife's sister and his father's mother was the daughter of my grandfather's sister. That sounds complex, but it is the simple truth. He is bound to me by family ties in two ways." I thought it might be unwise to name his father at that time. Turga blinked at me.

"And what do you intend to do with him?"

"I'll take him home, to Camulod."

"And me? What will you do with me?"

"Do with you? I'll do nothing with you. You are free to do whatever you wish."

"What if I wish to stay with the boy?"

"Then you shall. I was hoping that you would, and I suppose I had assumed you would. He's nursing still, is he not?"

Her face had relaxed, and now her voice sounded slightly less hostile. "Aye, he is, and will be for another year before he's weaned, although he's bigger and stronger than most." She crossed back to where I sat and stood close to me, looking down at the sleeping infant, and when next she spoke her voice was softer yet again, as though she were speaking to herself alone. "I saved his life, you said. But he saved mine, too. We are close bound, this child and I, and I would kill to keep him safe and by my side." She turned to look at me. "Will kill . . . so if you have thoughts of taking him away from me, best kill me now."

I shook my head. "Turga, I have no slightest thought of separating you from him. The boy is orphaned. You are the only mother that he has, and he needs you. Therefore, I need you, too, to care for him and keep him safe from harm. There is a place for you with him in Camulod, and you will be happy there, at peace. What? What is it?"