For Camelot's Honor (14 page)

Urien himself was smiling, showing all his sharp, dirty teeth.

“Behold!” he cried, sweeping out his arm to encompass the mob. “Urien's round table!”

Shouts of laughter and raucous jeers battered against Elen. She looked for Sir Geraint, but could not see him in the sea of bellowing strangers.

Sir Geraint is there. I am not alone. I was heard.

“Arthur the Bastard thinks he will rule this land. He thinks he and his outlanders can ride into our mountains and sweep all before them. These mountains have seen outland kings come in other days, and they have seen the men of the west drive them back.” Cheers and oaths split the air. Elen felt her heart beating very fast and its fear filled her. She wanted to run, she wanted to fly. Tears threatened because she could do nothing but stand.

“So it shall be with the Bastard!” More cheers and the wild yips and screams of men longing for battle. Urien grinned broadly. The sound swelled him to greatness. “But more than that! Once we have driven him from our hills, we will pursue him to his own hole! The Bastard will see his fortress looted, his lands burned, and our men getting sons of his women! Nor will we stop until the whole of this land is wiped clean of his works!”

The cheers doubled at that, and doubled again. The whole world was filled up with the roaring voices. The hawk screamed over it. The fear was overwhelming. It was only the strength of Urien's order that kept her upright.

“But Urien shall have none at his table who is not a true man! Each of you shall have a chance to prove his might against his fellows, and he whose striving proves him best, his prize will be threefold. First, he will have my favor in all things! Second, he will have this fine hawk!” He raised the bird high for all to see. Not that any man there was likely to know how to hunt or keep such a bird. It was a gift fit for a prince. That was all they knew. “Third, he will have this maiden who stands beside me for his own, and with her he shall have her dowry, which is all the land he sees here about him!”

The cheers rocked Elen back on her feet. She felt a thousand greedy eyes drink her in. The air seethed with their thoughts of what they would do once they had her won.

No.
She closed her eyes.
No. Mother, help me. None of them will have me. None. I will find a way.

“Go to your camps. My men will come and count you off in groups of fifty and you'll be told what turn you take on the field. The hundred men who show their best will fight again tomorrow, and of those the best, twenty will fight the third day for the great prize!”

The cheer that went up was deafening. The mob boiled, churned and scattered, men streaming down the hill. There was one only who held his place. Sir Geraint. He looked steadily at her, making certain she saw him. His mouth moved, silently, shaping a single word three times, before he swiftly turned and followed the rest of them, vanishing into the roiling crowd.

“There's one who'll fight hard for you, Elen,” laughed Urien. “You should be flattered.”

But he did not see what Elen saw. He did not see that Geraint had given her a message.

Well,
he had said.
Well.

He would meet her by the well, and she would find a way to get there. Tonight, she would start down the path to Urien's downfall.

In her mind, Elen smiled, and beside her the hawk let out a loud hunting cry.

Yes. Tonight, finally we begin the hunt.

It did not take Geraint long to catch up with his brother. Together, they made their way down the hill amid the crowd of gleeful men heading for their own piles of gear and weapons. Agravain did not seem inclined to talk yet, and Geraint was glad. Rage at the sight of proud, beautiful Elen standing so meekly beside Urien the Bull, closed his throat, and he did not believe he could have said a word had he wished to.

Their partly completed camp was on the edge of the woods. It was a bad spot for midges, but at least there was some shade and a bit of untrampled grass for the shaggy, unruly horses they'd traded for with their finer mounts once they were well on their way from Caerleon.

Once they stood among the neat piles of their own gear — there was no need for subterfuge so great that it could make Agravain sloppy — Agravain turned and surveyed their fellow warriors and the ground they occupied. His head was already full of calculations, Geraint could tell. He was memorising the lay of the land, the defences of the high house, and what weapons and horses could be seen.

“This is good.” He nodded. He spoke the old, mellifluous language they had grown up with, and that they had none of them spoken since they left home. It was frightening how fast it had come back to his tongue. “We will make a count of the men here, lose our melee and be on our way tonight.”

“No,” said Geraint.

“What?”

Geraint nodded up the hill to where Urien stood with Elen at his side. The swift and light maiden he had seen so short a time before was gone. Elen was drawn with pain and sorrow. Whatever had been done to her, it was almost more than she could bear. That was terribly plain.

Predictably, Agravain groaned. “Don't tell me you're going to start taking after our brother in matters of women too?”

He meant Gawain. It was as a friend and champion of women that Gawain made his fame, even before the story of how he won his bride from a foreign sorcerer became known. Geraint just looked at his brother. Then he sat down and rummaged in his saddle bag until he found his whetstone. He soaked it in the bucket that they'd left for the horses to drink from, and then pulled his sword from its sheath. He set the edge against the stone, and began to draw the stone down its length.

“That's both ludicrous and dangerous,” said Agravain flatly. “Come back with an army behind you. That is how you will save the girl, and if that is not enough for you, we have a duty to the king to warn him of this.” He studied the mass of men heading toward the plane. “This is no small thing.”

“You will lose in the contest today and leave,” said Geraint simply, not looking up from his work. Slowly, carefully with attention to each stroke against the grey stone. That was the way to gain a keen edge. “I will leave tonight, with Elen.”

Agravain made a strangled noise, half-anger and half-shock. “You're going to steal her out of Urien's arms with a thousand armed men all around you, who have all been promised she's
their
prize?”

Slow, careful, methodical strokes. The familiar whisper of metal against stone. Yes, Donal had done this before he'd left Caerleon, but it was something that needed doing again. He must have the sharpest edge, a fine, keen edge on this deceptively clumsy looking blade. “I will meet her tonight.”

“You're mad,” said Agravain flatly.

You're right, brother.
It was like a madness, the outrage that burst inside him when he looked on Elen's helpless state. Was this what Gawain had felt when he'd championed some lost damsel? He'd never asked. “Nonetheless. You will go tell our uncle what he must know. I will follow as quickly as I can.”

Agravain squatted down and seized Greaint's wrist so that he must still his hand. “Geraint, it is foolish,” he whispered urgently. “You will only get yourself killed, and probably her with you.”

Geraint at last and looked up at his brother. Agravain was furious and uncomprehending of reasons driven by heart's feeling, as ever, but he was also truly afraid. Inwardly, Geraint smiled at his brother. There was more heart in Agravain than he permitted any to guess. Outwardly, he kept his face still and open.
See me clearly, Agravain. Understand me.
“I will not leave her here.”

Agravain stood, throwing up his hands to Heaven in exasperation. “Geraint, you will do nothing at all for her if you die!”

“I will have tried,” he said simply. “I will have given her hope to sustain her until you can return with our king's men.”

Agravain shut his mouth like a box and then turned away. “Lord God, why have you given me three idiot brothers?” he muttered. Geraint grinned. Agravain would let himself be beaten today, and be on his way under cover of false shame, with a count the men and beasts safe inside his bosom. Geraint himself would count the men with his sword this day, and tonight … tonight, he would steal the meaning of their false tourney out from under their master.

Geraint returned to his work, drawing the stone along the blade.
Be strong, Elen. Tonight you are free.

Elen lay awake on her pallet. Above her, Urien snorted and turned over. Around them, men and women snored and muttered and shuffled in their sleep to find a more comfortable position on the dirt floor or thin straw mattresses. The hawk sat on her perch, her head tucked beneath her wing. Her own sound sleep dragged at Elen, but she forced her eyes to stay open. A puddle of silver moonlight filled the distant doorway. It was a clear night, bright enough for what she needed to do.

It was dangerous. It was at least foolish. If Urien woke while she was gone, he would ask where she had been, and she would have to tell him, and Geraint would die. But she must take the chance. She must take action, or she would run mad. Worse, she would fail under the weight of all the burdens her spirit now carried.

The day had been endless. Urien had made her sit beside him while he watched his “tourney” on the river plain. The noise had been worse than a hundred thunderstorms while men shouted and swords and clubs clashed again, and again. There had been no sense or order to the fight. They just attacked each other with a merry viciousness, leaping over their fellows when they fell, or kicking them aside to reach their next foe.

And Sir Geraint, her hope made flesh, was in the middle of it. Sometimes she caught glimpses of him in the crush, but never for long, not until the end. When Wyx had chosen the day's winners — sometimes with no more than a “And you there, with the crooked nose!” — Sir Geraint had stood with those fifty, although his brother did not.

Then came the feast. Urien had ordered one of the remaining cows slaughtered the day before, and it was roasted and shared out for his new “champions,” along with great draughts of strong ale. She'd had to serve Urien during the whole of the raucous feasting, and could not do more than glance toward Geraint. She did not once see him look toward her.

It did not matter. He waited out there now. Urien had staggered to his bed once it had finally been set up in the hall, and she had divested him of his clothes, and laid down on her own pallet without being ordered. Bemused by the ale, he did not order her to sleep. So she was awake, and in the smallest of ways, she was free.

Slowly, Elen rolled from her blanket. She crouched on the ground, trying to be nothing more than a shadow. The compulsion on her mind stirred, but Urien did not. Days of holding herself still made her legs tremble at the thought of moving, but move she did. She flitted between the sleeping bodies to the doorway. The hawk's sleep made her feel light and unsteady, but she saw the moon above, and she felt the wind on her face. She moved of her own will, and it was a victory. That victory gave her strength. Elen snatched her cloak from the chest beside the door and ducked into the night. In the hall's shadow, she squatted down and left her water behind. Then, she stood, and she ran.

I want to wash myself,
she said in the silence of her mind, over and over again.
I want to wash.

Her bare feet drummed against the rough earth. Stones stubbed her toes and cut the soles of her feet, but she did not slow down, even as she wrapped her cloak like a shawl around her head. Anyone who saw her would think she was a slave on some errand, and they would be right, but this errand was not her captor's.

I want to wash, that's all. I want to wash.

The fires burned low before doors and tents, glowing coals adding their orange light to the moon and the stars in the sky. Here and there, the dark shapes of men and women sat hunched beside them, talking the night away, passing skins of drink back and forth. In the distance someone raised their voice in drunken song. If any kept a true watch, Elen did not see them. The night was cold and her bare feet were soon numb, but she didn't care. All that mattered was that she was not stopped.

At last, she made out the low curving walls of the well. She reached its side, panting, clutching at the ends of her cloak and shivering with the cold from which her sluggish blood could not relieve for her.

There was no one there.

Could she have been wrong? Elen turned in a circle, trying to see through the darkness, but there was no movement, and the only human sounds were from the distant and fading celebration. Could she have mistaken the word or its meaning? She did not dare search the camps for him.

Despair washed through her, but then the bracken rustled with more than the night's wind. A figure slipped out of the darkness. “Lady?” he murmured, and it was Sir Geraint's voice.

Elen nodded, weak with relief.

Sir Geraint looked sharply left and right. She thought he would lead them into the forest so they would not be seen, but he instead came up to the well. A moment later she realized this was the better course. Even at this hour, it was a plausible thing for two people to come separately to the well, and if anyone approached, they would see them long before they were overheard.

Sir Geraint planted both hands on the side of the well. He gazed out across the night, looking up at the fires and the ruins of her home that stood stark in the moonlight. “What has been done to you?” he murmured.

For a moment, the words stuck in Elen's throat. Would he believe this thing she must tell him? He was a city man, and surely a Christian one, like the priest who had doubted the bridge on Midsummer's eve.

No. She must trust him. She had no choice. “I am cursed. Morgan the Fae placed my heart in the hawk that Urien offers as prize with my body. I must obey whoever is the hawk's master.”

Geraint nodded. His jaw worked itself back and forth for a time and his eyes continued to watch the hill, but the quality of his silence did not change, nor did the determination in his face or the set of his shoulders. He believed. She could read it in the very carriage of his person. Relief came again, and a little wonder that she could be so sure of what went on in the mind of this man when he had said so little.

“Can you come with me, now?” he asked the moon where it hung at the pinnacle of the sky. “We could be well away from here before sunrise.”

Yearning overtook her, but at once, Elen felt herself rooted to the spot. The vileness of the notion was as filth in her mind, burying all other feeling. She must leave here, now, at once. She must return to her house, her bed, her master, her heart. She should not be here. She could not be here.

I am only at the well. I may go to the well!
Elen shuddered, but steadied and was able to speak again. “No. He has ordered me not to try to escape him.”

“Then how is it you could come here?”

She swallowed.
Go back, go back, go back.
The words rumbled in her. “It is hard. I … there are small ways to fight this curse. I tell myself I am only at the well, only speaking with you. Nothing more.”

Sir Geraint's jaw shifted again. “Can you part from the bird?”

Elen shook her head. “If I did, he could call me back to him at any time.”

The knight's gaze searched the hillside. Someone shouted. Someone laughed. A light flickered up, and died quickly away. A wisp of cloud shuttled across the moon. Elen watched the man beside her as he watched the darkened world. She saw the line of his jaw beneath the black stubble of his beard, the curve of his neck, the slope of his shoulder and the line of his strong arm beneath the rough tunic. She felt the intensity of his concentration as he turned the problem over in his mind and willed the answer to come.

When Geraint spoke again, it was clear he chose his words with care.

“Could you bring the hawk here?” he asked at last.

Light dawned within Elen, and at the same time the revulsion, the fear, the rigidity redoubled. She closed her eyes, mustering all her strength so she could stand where she was. Bring the hawk, nothing more. To this place, no further. No further than the well. She was allowed to come to the well. He had said nothing about the hawk. He had not ordered her away from the hawk.

Perspiration rolled down her brow. Ashamed, she wiped at her face, and opened her eyes. “I will try.”

For the first time, Sir Geraint faced her. His face was little more than silver and shadow. It was in his voice the gentleness, the concern waited. “Tomorrow night then. I do not relish the idea of being hacked or bludgeoned to death for Urien's amusement.” She heard rather than saw the small smile that came with those words.

But Elen felt no answering smile in her. She was too cold, and too afraid. She felt his strength, and she knew her own, but would it be enough. Still, they would try, and she was not alone anymore. That was what she must cling to now. That would be enough, because it must be. “Thank you, Sir Geraint,” she said, and she could only hope he knew how much she meant by those words.

He looked at her for a long moment, and she wished she could clearly see his eyes, his face. He reached out and brushed the back of her hand with his fingertips. Then, without another glance, he slipped away into the darkness.

Elen stayed where she was for a long moment, feeling the line of heat on her skin where he had touched her. For a moment, she could imagine she felt her heart beating inside her, stirring her blood and restoring the warmth of her body. For the briefest moment, she felt free.

Reluctantly, she shook herself, wrapped her makeshift shawl more tightly around her and started up the hill. The celebrations were fading like the coals from the many fires. The lucky few who had tents had mostly gone to them. The rest hunched by the remains of their fires, or slept stretched out on the hard ground. Elen tried to prod her reluctant feet to move more quickly. The danger of the night would not be over until she was lying back where Urien expected her. But she moved slowly — cautiously, she told herself — breathing the cold night air, for this one blessed moment under no compulsion but her own.

“Land, he promises. It'd be a fine thing … Set up in the high house. That bridge must bring in good coin.”

Elen froze for an instant, startled. The voice came out of the dark, from nearby, but she was passing between two tents, and ahead and behind were more little sites with their bundles of gear piled up so high they were hard to tell from the silhouettes of the humans hunched near the fires for warmth.

“Coin and kyne. Aye. Think on it my man.”

Outrage swelled in Elen.
These are my lands. They belong to
my
people. How dare you count their profits for yourself?

“You'd not mind the woman, my wife?”

“Pah. That scrap? Sell her off to the highest bidder once he's given you her lands.”

Rage burned, filling her with its intensity. She suddenly wanted to find the speakers and tear them apart with her bare hands, to work on them all the violence she could not bring to Urien.

“Well, I tell you and none other, I don't know. There are some mighty men here.”

“Don't you think I'm watching? You'll do well on the morrow. You're better than most still standing. After that, well, my man, there are ways.”

Elen struggled to master her fury.
Move on, move on. What good does standing here do? You'll only be seen. Get back to Urien. You cannot give him cause to question you.

Elen forced herself to move, but the soft voice followed her.

“I thought there might be. A man is blessed to have such a woman beside him.”

The woman laughed, a high, harsh sound. “Win this contest of Urien's, and you'll have no cause to say otherwise.”

Even as she tried to close her ears to the night's greedy musings, Elen's feet began to run. She had to get back to the house. She had to. She could not even think of stealth or delay. She ran, her lungs gasping for air as she tore up the slope. She knew what had happened, and fear all but blinded her.

Urien stood in the doorway of the high house, his shoulders hunched around his ears and his hand leaning against the lintel for support. He watched her running to him and frowned deeply as she stood before him panting, a guilty, straying slave.

“Where did you go?” he demanded.

The need to speak made Elen shudder, she gulped air, but she also gathered her will.
Where did I go? That's all he asked. That's all I must answer. That's
all. “To the well.”

Urien's frown deepened. “Why?”

Mother, help me.
“I had a call of nature and wanted to wash myself afterwards.” The compulsion grumbled and it growled, prowling her mind, but the force, the fascination of it did not come.

Urien grunted, rubbing his head that was surely still muddled with all the drink he had poured down his gullet. “You use the water in the bucket next time. I can't have you wandering among these ruffians. They may just spoil you before the games are over.”

Elen bowed her head.

“Come back in. Lay down, go to sleep.”

Elen did, and as she lay herself on the blankets, she had savored her triumph. This much was done. This first step had been taken, small though it might be. She would find away to take the next.

Blackness took her, but for the first time in so many days, her last conscious feeling was that of hope.

Elen dreamed.

It was the dream she'd had before, the dream of the hawk in the sky, of her body being torn open and her heart lifted free by the magnificent bird, of the blue-eyed horseman and the great spear in his hand, of how he killed the bird, and how Elen felt her heart split open.

She woke in the morning with tears on her cheeks and pain in her belly, and not a thing she could do.

The shackles of her slavery settled over her again. She had thought she could bear their weight more easily now that there was a plan of action, but she found she only strained against her captivity all the harder.

She ran to the well and she toted the water back. She fetched and carried for Urien, who was red-eyed and tender-headed, and she ate when she was permitted. All the time she was in the hall, she found herself stealing glances at the hawk. Inside, the bird was not hooded, and it preened itself and fluffed its feathers, and flapped its wings, and longed for its freedom as she longed for hers. Did it feel her? Did its yearning for the sky and the hunt reflect the yearning she felt to run, to fight, to drive Urien and his men before her and see them flee like frightened rabbits? Did it know who owned the borrowed heart that beat within it?