For The Love Of A Pendragon.

Chapter Eleven...Nine Months Later...

Nimue

Chapter Ten...Nine Months...

I had been unable to settle all evening, pacing my old chambers backwards and forwards as swiftly as my swollen belly would allow.  I was nearing my full term and it had been decided that I would relocate to the rooms Merlin, Arthur and I had shared prior to the prince’s recognition. That way we would ensure that my labour cries would not be heard bringing an unsuspecting servant investigating. Drusilla tried to soothe me but it did little good, 'I must be out of this place mother!' I exclaimed with heated frustration. 'It is suffocating and it does not do for a woman of the old ways to bring her child into the world within stone walls!

'Come now my child, do not rage against it for we both know birthing your baby anywhere else is an impossibility, the king would not hear of it. And nor would I.' she added firmly.

'If I could only ride out to the rowan glade,' I pinned, ‘it is not so very far away and I have at least a week, this waiting is killing me!'

Drusilla knew my strong will as well as anyone by that time and knew that she would have to afford me this one luxury if only to keep me from fretting and damaging her unborn grandchild.

'I shall have a horse made ready for you but watch no one sees you for they all believe you accompanied Sir Ector northwards and we cannot have our plan foiled now.'

'It is dark and silent outside, I shall ready my own horse and return before dawn none shall know, fear not.'

'I trust in your instincts Nimue, but be careful I beseech you. You know that your life and that of your unborn child is more precious to Ector and I than our own. To find you living filled us with the greatest, unimaginable joy, do not place yourself in danger and take that away from us again my daughter.'

I smiled at her gently, reminded once again how glad I was that Arthur and I had called his foster parents to us in secret and told them of the deception. 'I shall be home before you know it, rest a while mother for the dawn will bring us one step closer to our long awaited arrival.' An unrivalled smile lit up her tired features, Drusilla rose and embraced me tenderly bidding me farewell.

I remained in the rowan wood but a short while, lying flat out on my back on the earthen floor of the grove wishing I could birth my baby where I lay. At birth a child should be instantly connected with the earth from which it came and to where it will one day return. Drusilla as a dutiful Christian woman could not understand this and instead had insisted that I be surrounded by stone walls, warm fires, darkness and piles of woollen and fur blankets. Arthur took her word for it having never sought any knowledge previously about childbirth and the ways of midwives.

As I re-entered Camelot leading Ajax behind quietly I thought I saw a stirring up ahead as I rounded the corner towards the stables. I shook my head dismissively believing that the light was playing tricks on my weary, pregnant mind. I tethered him to his stall and made my way through the back door and across the small courtyard when out of the darkness ahead leapt a frightful figure. Fear gipped me but I fought the urge to shout out.

The man advanced towards me, the moonlight reflecting ghostly in his enraged eyes.

'The time has come for you to die old man,' a horrifying familiar voice spat. He lunged, tackling my fragile body to the ground... 

Percy and I struggled for what felt like a long and heated moment until he raised his hand and plunged the dagger deep into my forearm. Pain erupted there, searing though me, I cried out and he laughed cruelly. 'Next will be you heart old man,' he declared resentment and anger sounding in his tone. 'You broke her heart now I will break yours!' His hands seized the front of my think fur cloak and ripped it away from my skin. Percy shouted in surprise and leapt backwards cursing; as the pain in my forearm subsided I knew all hope of deception was lost.