Balin and Columbine (A Children of the May Novella - Book 1.5b)

Chapter Seven: The Mudflats

At some point in the night the tide turned, and the river began to push the boat back towards Camelot. Columbine was woken from a shallow sleep by seawater surging against the boat’s blunt prow. The oars were still in her hands, and she used them to steer the vessel to the nearer bank. She stepped out onto the black sands, and pulled the boat in until it was wedged firm in the mud. Then she climbed back in, retrieved the Dolorous Stroke from the pigeon cloak, sat down, and promptly fell asleep, her head propped up on the sword’s pommel.

She was woken by the heat of the sun on her face, drooling a little bit from the right side of her mouth. When she wiped the drool it away, the back of her hand came away with a smear of mud. It was only then that she remembered that she had caked herself with the stuff as a disguise. She spat on her fingertips to wipe her face.

‘No, don’t wipe it off, lass,’ said a shivering voice below her. ‘It looks right elegant, it does.’

Balin was still lying in the boat. He was holding the pigeon cloak tightly to him. Although there was some amusement in his voice, it was clear that he was very ill. What was visible of his skin through the thick covering of hair on his head and face showed deathly pale. His crusted lips trembled with a cold only he could feel.

‘Where are we?’ he said.

She looked around at the flat, bleak land. On the far side of the broad river there had once been a forest, but now it had been reduced to nothing but burnt stumps. A few green shoots were trying to revive what must have once been a magnificent and ancient wood. She wondered if the trees had been used to help build Camelot up the river, had gone for ships, or whether they had been burned down by lightning or by accident.

Columbine turned to the land on their side. It was a murky black mudflat, with a fine mist hanging over some patches of ground. In the far distance was a range of high hills. She could see no dwellings at all, not even a poor cottage. It was a horrible wasteland compared to Vellion.

‘There’s bog all for miles,’ she said with a sigh.

Balin pushed himself up to a sitting position and looked out at the mudflats. ‘I came by this way in the winter. I met a friend in those hills beyond. No love for the round table, that boy; he’ll help us if they come looking.’ He lay back down. ‘Have there been any more boats on the water?’

She shook her head. ‘The tide turned in the night. They’ll have been slowed by it if they gave chase by the river.’

‘We should get away from the water.’

‘And quickly. My thoughts exactly. Let me have a look at your leg.’

Balin tried to stop her, but he was too weakened by his injury and the fever to do anything more than limply gesture at her. As she had thought, the lower leg had been broken by the falling stone. Most of his left shin was black and leaking. He didn’t notice when she touched it; he could no longer feel his foot or the horrible, lumpen mess that had once been his shinbone. She feared the leg would have to be amputated below the knee, but didn’t demoralise him by slicing it off with the Dolorous Stroke there and then. She would keep an eye on it and lop it off at the first sign of the gangrene.

‘It’s nasty,’ she told him gently. ‘We should find a healer quickly.’

‘Garnish will help,’ he said. ‘He knows herbs and what have you. We just have to get to the pass in the hills where he keeps his hut.’

Columbine frowned. ‘He from the north, this Garnish?’

‘He’s a madman is what he is,’ said Balin. ‘No idea where’s he from, except it’s certainly south of my home. No true northerner he.’