Ides of the May (Children of the May 2 - updates weekly)

Chapter Ten: Heading South

For the rest of that night I couldn’t say anything right. I kept digging myself into deeper and deeper holes with Palomina. Many times I wished I had never found the spell to hide my stutter, as I would have had to think harder about my words, but the magic had become such a habit with me that it was not easy to untangle. I tried to tell her that I’d already resolved to come clean; but then she asked me why I had felt it necessary to lie in the first place. So I told her about my intense loneliness on Avalon, and the way my phantoms had at first seemed to turn against me until I learned the glamour; but then she asked about the nature of the phantoms, and why I had let her believe they were temptations placed in my way by Lady Bertilak. She inferred, despite my protestations, that I had made them for less wholesome reasons than had been the case. ‘What did you make them do, Drift?’ I remember her snarling at me. ‘Did you have them undress for you?’

I became angry in return. I accused her of lying to me, of hiding Mordred’s intention to send me to my mother, of not telling me that Margaret of the Marsh’s father was with us. I wondered out loud if she was jealous of dead Margaret. She responded with a captain’s logic: she had not told me about Mordred’s plan because as our leader that was his prerogative, not hers, and if I had not been so cowardly with my magic then I would have known everything she knew. My accusation of jealousy she would not dignify with a rebuttal.

I tried to apologise, but ended up offending her even more. My explanation that my discussion with Mordred earlier in the day had triggered my desire to tell her the truth was interpreted as an admission of habitual lying. When I repeated what I had told Mordred about my plan to kill Avalon, she said I should have gone through with it, as then I could have saved her brother. ‘You think you are the only one here who has made sacrifices, Drift,’ she said. ‘I have involved my family in a war and lost two brothers, one in his opinion of me, the other to Arthur’s dungeons.’ She didn’t stop there, she said something I thought very cruel: ‘To think I loved a hunchback for his pure heart! Your soul is as twisted as your true form.’

Then she stormed out of the stony chamber I had been allocated – she would not let me enter hers – half-sobbing, half-raging. I conjured a block of ice to block the door, and broke it apart chip-by-chip with small pellets I shot at it.

One hundred times an hour I thought about knocking on her door to apologise, and one hundred times an hour I decided that she was as in the wrong as me, if not more.

* * *

At that time of year night in the far north seems to last no longer than a few minutes, but I think I managed to sleep for an hour or so in fits and starts. After two or three further hours of tossing and turning, I heard people begin to move around the camp. I got out of bed, and as soon as I did this it disappeared, mattress, sheets and all. Garnish’s hospitality spell was being removed from the camp as we made preparations to leave – all of the furniture was part of his enchantment. I dressed and left my chamber in the grim-faced hope of finding Palomina. I knocked on the door of her cell, but there was no answer. When I tentatively pushed it open, I discovered her room was bare.

I heard whistling coming towards me from up the path, and turned to see Mordred. I had never heard him whistle before. He was completely transformed from the boy I had found sitting alone in the darkness the day before. He was smiling even as he whistled, all tension gone from his body.

‘Good morning, Drift!’

I looked up at the sky and saw blue. It was a more pleasant day than the one before, though it didn’t feel like that to me.

‘I’m going to bathe before we head off. Coming?’

‘I’m looking for Palomina.’

‘She and Melwas set off early to find a boat. The party for Orkney are going to meet them at the coast.’