Children of the May (Children of the May Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-Four: Melwas (part one)

Palomides didn’t come to dinner that evening. It seemed that he had been riding out in front of the castle when his horse had reared and thrown him. Elia said that his mount had been startled by the first roar of the Questing Beast any of us had heard in weeks. He had come down hard, bashing his head on a rock, and had yet to wake. Piers insisted on staying by his bedside, and Palomina came down only to collect food for them all. She looked drawn out with worry.

I wanted to hug her, to tell her it would be alright, but that evening Accolon and Bellina joined us for food. As I wandered the grounds of the castle in the afternoon, I had turned his words over in my mind, and then looked inwards. The prince’s presence at table reminded me of the darkest of my thoughts. I had decided that he was right; that I was too damaged to make Palomina happy. Just the sight of her sadness in the great hall, and the knowledge that such trivial thoughts were going through my head as her brother lay gravely ill, confirmed that there was something terribly wrong in me. A better person would have thought only of her, her brother and the boy who loved her brother most. I was full of selfish thoughts.

‘What do we think?’ said Accolon, when Palomina had gone back upstairs.

‘I’ve seen bumps on the head like that kill a man before,’ said Bellina.

‘Be quiet, girl!’ snapped Melwas. ‘There is no need to say it.’

* * *

I couldn’t sleep. Sometime in the early hours of the morning I picked Christian up and went down to see Palomides. I was surprised to find Mordred sitting by his bedside with the Saracen’s hand in his, and no sign of Palomina or Piers. Palomides had a bandage around his head.  He was breathing steadily, but there was no other movement from him: no fluttering beneath his eyelids, nor the slightest twitch in his fingers. He was in the deepest of sleeps.

‘Drift.’ Mordred greeted me in a whisper. ‘I sent them both to get some rest. They were exhausted. What are you doing here?’

I pushed the door closed behind me. I flexed the fingers of my right hand at him. ‘I-I-I-I thought I might see if the magic could help him.’

Mordred let go of the Saracen’s hand, and brushed a curl from his own eyes. ‘I don’t think it could hurt. Do you want to give Christian here?’ Mordred took the baby in the crook of his arm, and sat a little further away from the bed. ‘If nothing else, Drift, can you get some water into his belly? He can’t drink. He’ll start drying out before long, and that could be dangerous.’

I pulled up the chair on the opposite side of the sickbed. I closed my eyes and held my hand out over Palomides. I breathed deeply, trying to put myself in the frame of mind that had helped Piers. I remembered Epicene’s hand on the back of my neck, the clean feeling of isolation at the bottom of the lake. Palomina’s face popped into my mind, in the warm shadows of the cave where we’d built the boat, but with that memory came Accolon’s words: it’s just that you’re so terribly damaged... I think we can put it down to how long she’s been away from the sea. I forced her face away and focussed on Margaret’s hands in mine, back on the ship.

‘There we go,’ said Mordred.

I could feel the watersnakes emerging from my fingers. They became my eyes as they touched Palomides’ skin. I felt no conscious thoughts from the Saracen’s brain, just the grinding routines that kept his body going by controlling his temperature, his breathing and his heartbeat.

One of the snakes crept down his throat and put water in his belly, something he desperately needed. But when the others attempted to probe the place where he was hurt, the brain screamed in alarm. There was nothing I could do.