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

Chapter Twenty-One: A Betrayal

‘Drift! Drift!’

I was still in the bath when I returned to consciousness. Mordred was standing over me, shaking me by the shoulders. He was completely oblivious to his own nakedness, but even with his thoughts swimming towards me through the bathwater, I could not help but feel a pang of jealousy at the sight of his perfectly-shaped body.

He crouched down when he saw I was awake.

‘What happened?’

‘I-I-I-I-I-I, gosh, I was overwhelmed by the f-f-force of your memories.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t feel a thing.’

‘I-I-I don’t think people do.’

‘What did you see?’

I looked down at the surface of the water. I didn’t want to tell him.

‘Sir T-T-T-Tristan. And Iseult. K-K-K-K-King –’

‘Don’t say it.’ His eyes pleaded with me, as did the thoughts still snaking their way towards me. After that first hit they were no longer as powerful.

‘I can understand why you saw that,’ said Mordred, sitting back down in the water. ‘It’s my most personal reason for hating Arthur and his knights.’ He looked away. ‘I wasn’t even born on the May Day, you know; I was found on that day.’

‘I know.’

‘But all this, all of us together here, it’s given me the idea that we can’t make this war about acts of individual revenge.’ His voice hardened: ‘Trust me, I will rescue my sister. But Arthur has wronged so many people, and the only way to fight back is to do so together.’

That was true as well. He believed that.

‘I wanted to ask you for advice, Drift. Accolon and Bellina. Are they with us, or are they going to stand in our way?’

The water told me: He means have you read their minds?

‘I-I-I-I have no special knowledge of them. I w-w-w-w-w-won’t do this,’ I flicked the water with my fingers, ‘unless people invite me to. I won’t trick or f-force my w-w-w-w-way into their minds.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘That’s moral.’

But he was disappointed. A thought flashed across his mind and through the water: what a weakling, he’s no soldier. I tried not to let it show on my face that I had heard that: it wasn’t fair to hold people to account for the thought of a moment.

‘I wanted to say more one thing: Melwas and I… we have noticed how Agravaine is behaving. How he doesn’t like to be around us. And I think we understand why he’s like that. I just want you to know, Drift… we’d do anything to change that if we could.’

Which wasn’t quite true – not on Mordred’s part anyway. He was in love with Melwas, joyously and wholly in love with her. He felt sorry for Agravaine, but he would do nothing to change their situation if it meant giving her up, as it surely would if Agravaine was to be anything other than miserable around them.

I nodded, and Mordred was glad that he could detect no doubt on my face. Looking back, I think he did not know truly how he himself felt about Agravaine’s misery, and wanted to check the truth of the words matched his thoughts, something I could confirm. At that moment I didn’t think it right to tell him he was lying to himself, even if only in a small way.

Things might have worked out better if I had.

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