The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [126]
It was easy then for Bedwyr and myself to slip away. Our horses plunged down from the hard road, cantered heavily through a league of wet meadow-land, and gained the fast going of the road that led southwest.
Soon the lights and sounds of the Island sank behind us and away. Mist curled from the water on either hand. The stars showed the way, but faintly, like lamps along a road for ghosts. Our horses settled into their stride, and soon the way widened, and we could ride knee to knee.
"This lodge to the southwest." His voice was breathless. "Is that where we go?"
"I hope so. Do you know it?"
"I can find it. Is that why you needed Melwas' help? Surely, when he knows of the Queen's accident, he'll let our troops search his land from end to end. And if he's not at the lodge now -- "
"Let us hope he is not."
"Is that a riddle?" For the first time since I had known him, his voice was barely civil. "You said you'd explain. You said you knew where she was, and now you're looking for Melwas. Well, then -- ?"
"Bedwyr, haven't you understood? I think Guinevere is at the lodge. Melwas took her."
The silence that followed was more stormy than any oath. When he spoke I could hardly hear him. "I don't have to ask you if you're sure. You always are. And if you did have a vision, I can only accept it. But tell me how, and why?"
"The why is obvious. The how I don't yet know. I suspect he has been planning this for some time. Her habits of riding out are known, and she often goes to the forest that edges the marsh. If she encountered him there, when she was riding ahead of her people, what more natural than that she should stop her mare and speak to him? That might account for the silence, while the troopers tried to find her at first."
"Yes...And if he gripped the rein and tried to seize her, and she spurred her mare on...That would account for the broken rein and the marks we found by the banks. By all the gods, Merlin! It's rape you're talking about...! And you said he must have been planning this for some time?"
"I can only guess at it," I said. "It seems likely that he must have made a few false casts before the chance came; the Queen unattended, and the boat ready nearby."
I did not pursue my own thoughts further. I was remembering that lamplit room, so carefully prepared for her; the chess game; the Queen's demure composure, and her smiling look. I was thinking, too, of the long hours of daylight and dusk that had passed since she had vanished.
So, obviously, was Bedwyr. "He must be mad! A petty king like Melwas to risk Arthur's anger? Is he out of his mind?"
"You could say so," I said dryly. "It has happened before, where women are concerned."
Another silence, broken at length by a gesture, dimly seen, and a change in his horse's stride. "Slow here. We leave the roadway soon."
I obeyed him. Our horses slowed to a trot, a walk, as we peered around us in the mist. Then we saw it, a track leading, apparently, straight off into the marsh.
"This is it?"
"Yes. It's a bad track. We may have to swim the horses." I caught a glance back at me. "Will you be all right?"
Memory plucked at me. Bedwyr and Arthur, in the Wild Forest, riding, necks for sale, as boys will, but always with a care for myself, the poor horseman plodding at heel.
"I can manage."
"Then down here." His horse plunged down the narrow twist of mud among the reeds, then took the water like a boat launching; mine went after it, and we were forging, wet to the thigh, through the smooth water. It was a strange