The Call of Camelot

Chapter 21 - Annwn

My eyes sprung open at the sight of purple heather, the echo of a melodic voice and the scent of wet grass beneath decaying trees, they had haunted my dreams.

The image of the redheaded woman leading me to an ancient burial mound amongst a field of purple heather was a picture my mind had often wondered back to in moments of quiet solitude, but it hadn't been a dream that had repeated itself until tonight.   Intuition was telling me that someone was trying to send me a message, I just wish I knew what that message was because I suspected that the dream would keep resurfacing until I figured it out!

In spite of my dreamworld troubles and the stresses and wonderment of yesterday's events, I was thankful that I'd at least managed a full night's rest, sleep coming within moments of my head resting on my pillow.

Elin arrived shortly after I'd woken, setting to work on our morning regime which normally happened to the cheerful tune of her constant chatter. However this morning my maid and companion was unusually silent.

The second round of Arthur's tournament was happening this afternoon and Elin had made no secret of her excitement, but rather than chewing my ear off about how much she was looking forward to the games she instead worked through our routine as though on auto-pilot, saying barely a word to me and not once meeting my eye.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong or am I left to guess?" I asked tired of her silence "and don't you dare tell me nothing is the matter because I'll know you're lying!"

Rather than answering me Elin set to work on tying the laces of my favourite blue gown, unnecessarily tight if I might add.  But she couldn't dodge my questions forever and did everything she could to avoid looking me in the eye as she dressed my hair.

"There is much talk amongst the servants as to Lord Mordred's recovery" she started, my glare matched with my resting bitch face proving to be a winning combination "some had said he was sure to die and now he is recovered, there are some who claim it was you who was responsible for saving his life!"

"And why would saving his life be the topic of gossip?"

"Because my lady, they claim you used dark magic to save him, they say you are a demon!"

Well, at least I understood why Elin was behaving so strangely towards me!  Unsurprisingly, my first instinct to being called something so terrible was to be insulted and angry and it took a lot of effort to bite my tongue and not make Elin the sole recipient of that anger.

But I quickly realised that I couldn't blame people for jumping to such a terrible conclusion!  It was becoming an irritating habit of mine to frequently remind myself that the world I was now a part of was nothing like the world I'd come from.  Where I saw rational explanations to most things, in this time people were very black and white in their thinking, meaning what they didn't understand was normally labelled as something evil.  So I truly understood why people were saying what they were about me.  But it hurt to think Elin shared that view, I thought we were closer than that.

"And is that what you think of me Elin? Do you think me a demon?"

"I know that someone who possesses as much kindness as you do my lady cannot be entirely evil, but inside of you is the same dark magic as those who have threatened Camelot for most of my life and do not think we have forgotten what happened to those men outside our gates"

It took a great deal of effort to stop myself from blurting out the truth of what really happened to those men, I wanted to tell her the truth and have her believe it but I couldn't endanger her life like that.  I would just have to cope with knowing that a part of Elin thought me capable of such vicious cruelty.