Pendragon's Heir (58 page)

Blanchefleur puffed out the ghost of a laugh. “Perhaps it is just as well that I cannot find them and read them now.”

Sir Ector said, so quietly that she almost failed to hear it: “I read the title of one of them as she took it away. It looked me in the face from her hands: I could not help it.”

“And?”

“It said in Middle French,
The Death of Arthur
.”

A cold hand settled around Blanchefleur’s throat and squeezed. At last she said: “But death comes—”

“To us and all mortals. I know. It may be years in the future.”

“Oh, Grandfather! There must be
something
I can do.”

“Why, what are you thinking of?”

“I don’t know. But if I really am the Heir of Logres, I ought to be able to do something to save it, oughtn’t I?”

“And you will, if you’re meant to. But serving Logres is not only about sitting in council with the wise, or outfacing sorcerers, or wandering the streets of Sarras in search of the Grail. There are also those who build houses, and plough the earth, and rear children.”

“I suppose there are.” She thought about that for a while and said, “But I need to know if I’m the Heir of Logres, don’t I? And if I could only look back and say, yes, a thing I did preserved her, then I would
know
who I am.”

Sir Ector laughed. “Oh, is that the trouble? If it concerns you so much, whether you’re the Heir of Logres, why not ask?”

“Ask!” Blanchefleur stared at him. “Whom?”

“Your mother would know.”

“Why, I couldn’t.”

This time, Sir Ector lifted both his eyebrows above his spectacles in incredulity. “Why not?”

“I…” But she had regretted her silence before, when it was too late, the night Camelot fell. Why, after all, not? “Perhaps I could.” She slid off the edge of the desk. “If I see her again.”

A
T THAT
,
ONE OF
S
IR
E
CTOR
’
S
knights came in with the Bishop, and Blanchefleur, knowing she was not needed, slipped out and looked for Perceval. She found him in the armoury with his shield and a pot of red paint.

“Why,” she said, “you’re wearing your surcoat.”

Perceval pulled her in for a brief hug. “Yes.” He let go and picked up the little blunt knife with which he had been scraping flakes of paint off his shield. The three-pointed label across the gules and gold of Gawain was coming off, leaving a soft yellow cloud over the leather beneath. Blanchefleur took a second, closer look at his surcoat. Here, too, a darker red stripe showed where some appliquéd cloth had been torn away.

She understood. It was like swallowing a stone. “Oh, Perceval. When did it happen?”

He glanced back up to her. If there was any pain in him, it was so mixed with other griefs that she could not single it out from among them. “I do not remember how many days ago. The Lady of the Lake took me to him before the end came.”

Again, Blanchefleur understood. “He spoke to you? I’m
so
glad.”

“He did.” Perceval blew the last of the yellow flakes off his shield and reached for the red paint. With careful strokes he smoothed over the yellow cloud; the label vanished. “In the end, he was given enough grace for that. It is hard to mourn.”

Blanchefleur remembered what he had once said about the elation of first grief. She slid onto the bench next to him and leaned against his left shoulder. When the hard grief, the later grief came, she would be there.

Perceval said, “You have not told me what happened in the pavilion, with Mordred, before I woke.”

Blanchefleur winced and laughed a little. “I hoped you wouldn’t ask.”

Perceval finished with the paint, and returned the lid to the pot. “I am asking.”

“Well, he—he wanted to argue with me at first. He said a lot of nonsense, about Logres not being worth saving and the only purpose of Sarras being to distract people from what they can really do to help. He says Logres must be entirely destroyed.”

“What, right there in front of everyone?”

“Yes! Agravain, Alisander, Pertisant—I thought perhaps one of them would come to his senses when Mordred said that. I begged them to hear what Mordred was saying. But in the end they agreed with him.”

Perceval growled deep in his chest. “The shame of it! Even the Silver Dragon has some sense of honour, but not the brethren of the Table!”

“But they seemed so…” Blanchefleur searched for the right word. “So reluctant. So
torn
.”

He shook his head. “Have no unease on that account. There is a kind of flinty stubbornness that tricks itself out in the garb of pity. What happened after?”

“Well. Ah. Mordred asked me to marry him again. He said it would give him victory. So I refused. Then he said that he would let you and me go back to the other place, to Gloucestershire, you remember. Only we must sign away our title to Britain and Logres.”

Perceval nodded. “So I heard when I woke. He asked you to marry him again? Why did he do that? He knows what you think of him.”

“I don’t know why.” It was strictly true, but if she left it there, it would be like a lie. “But I nearly said yes. I am sorry.”

Perceval looked confused. “What?
Why?
”

“Well, he said a lot of things.”

Perceval went on staring at her. Blanchefleur felt herself becoming redder and redder. “It was only for a moment,” she mumbled. “And just for that moment, it seemed like the best way to keep him from killing everyone. Please don’t be vexed.”

“Oh, I’m not vexed.” She didn’t tell him she could feel his displeasure weighing down the air like a storm. “It just surprises me.
Mordred!
” He shook his head and reached for a pot of water to begin washing the paint-brush.

Blanchefleur put her cool hands to her hot cheeks, resting her elbows on the table. Perceval swished the brush in and out of the water. Suddenly, irrationally, she was cross with him. After everything Mordred had said and done, was Perceval just going to wash his paintbrush and pretend not to care?

“Perceval?”

“Yes?”

“Would you…I mean, what would it be like, if we weren’t able to marry for a very long time? How would you feel?”

Perceval’s brows stitched together. “Very irked. Why do you ask? I intend to marry you as soon as we have a spare day for it.”

“It’s just something Mordred said. He said not to make him wait longer. He said he would go mad unless I said yes.”

Perceval gaped for a moment. Then his shoulders heaved and his voice pealed out into laughter which cleared the air like thunder, until his face was red and tears streamed from his eyes and he was gasping for breath.

“Oh, Blanchefleur. I see it now. Do you not know the kind of thing a man says when he means to deceive?”

“No,” said Blanchefleur, covering her face with her hands and wishing she had not spoken, for nothing could be worse than the lightning-lash of his laughter.

“Ohhh.” Perceval tugged her hands away from her face. “Do understand me, dear love. I am
deeply
irked by each day that passes with this last barrier between us. Sometimes I do think I’ll go daft. But I have lasted this long without you; what kind of chicken-livered weakling would I be if I couldn’t last a little longer?”

He smiled at her, both amused and coaxing, and she gave in and melted against his shoulder. “Oh, Perceval! What a fool I’ve been.”

He fended her off with an elbow. “Don’t push me too far, woman. You might wake some of those raging passions of mine.”

I
N THE HALL THAT NIGHT FOR
the evening meal, Blanchefleur recognised, with dreamlike surprise, the doom-laden air of a city under siege. She told herself that she was still in danger, but no answering ripple of fear broke the calm of her mind. After what had passed the previous night in Mordred’s pavilion, it would take more than a siege to worry her.

They had finished the meal and were sitting with Ector at the high table, listening while he told them his arrangements for the defence of the town and fortress, when footsteps came on the pavement outside the hall and Blanchefleur looked up to see two women enter in the company of a man-at-arms.

She leaped to her feet. “Branwen! Mother!”

Even Branwen, huddled shivering under a cloak, seemed exhausted from wandering in the woods. But when she saw Blanchefleur, a smile broke like dawn across her face. She came running up to the table and flung cold, damp arms around her neck.

“Blanchefleur! Alive! And safe! I need to sit down.”

She sagged into a chair and closed her eyes.

The Queen followed with more composure. “Blanchefleur. Now God be thanked. I mourned you as dead.” As she kissed her mother’s cheek, Blanchefleur thought she had never seen her so wet and draggled, even on the first morning in Joyeuse Gard. But if Guinevere felt the shame of her frightful condition, she betrayed it neither by word nor gesture, mistress of Logres still, despite the mud on her hem and the rain in her hair.

“How did you come here? Where is Morgan?” Blanchefleur asked.

Guinevere sank into a chair, smoothed her damp hair back, and said, “Do not ask me where Morgan is; we lost her, or she lost us, in the dark. We crossed the river, circled north, and came here. Did you find the knife?”

“The knife?”

“Branwen tells me you went to steal a knife from Mordred. This is all I know.”

Sir Ector was speaking to the man-at-arms. “You say Mordred is leaving?”

“His camp fires have gone. We sent out a scout, but he came back almost at once with the ladies.”

Blanchefleur said, “Oh, Mother. I got the knife from Mordred, but when I used it, nothing happened.”

“Why, what did you expect?”

Blanchefleur waved her hands. “According to Morgan, Mordred was no natural child. She bore him like her own son, but he was made with a strand of the King’s hair and the aid of hell.”

To her surprise a whole tide of expressions passed across the Queen’s face at this—some mixture of surprise, illumination, and relief followed by fierce triumph and something else that might have been disappointment or guilt. But all Guinevere said, in her soft high voice, was, “Indeed.”

Far away, a trumpet sounded. Sir Perceval and Sir Ector looked at each other, and left the room.

“Morgan said that if we used the knife on his shadow, it would dissolve the unnatural bond that made his body. Victory at one stroke.”

The Queen’s mouth thinned. “Did she so? We were watching from the trees when he captured you. I had a mind to ride down and bring you help, but Morgan said there was nothing the three of us could do.”

Blanchefleur opened her eyes in surprise and said, “It was a bold thought, but I’m sure Morgan was right.”

The Queen cast her a sidelong look and said, “It was bold of you to face Mordred.”

Once the dry tone would almost have injured her. But she knew Guinevere a little better now, and recognised her words as high praise. Blanchefleur flushed with pleasure and said, “And your escape. That was well carried out.”

“I misjudged my guard.” Her fingers touched her collarbone where the silver medallion once hung. “But once I was in the trees, it was child’s play to get clear of the others. The sots!”

“Then Morgan and Branwen found you without trouble?”

“Yes.” A serving-man had brought her food and wine and the Queen reached out, shaking the sleeve back from her wrist with a graceful gesture, to pick up the goblet. “That I never thought I should see: Morgan of Gore coming to my aid.”

Blanchefleur sighed. “I believe she really meant to help us. Unless she was lying about the knife. Or did she really think it would work?”

“Which is more likely?” There was a sceptical twist in the Queen’s mouth.

At the foot of the hall, the door flung open and Perceval came striding back in, grinning all over his face. “All’s well,” he called. “The King is here, and Mordred has fled.”

In her chair, Branwen came back to life with a start. “Heilyn?”

“I’ll find him for you,” Perceval promised.

But Branwen was already on her feet. “Wait! I’m coming!”

She went down the hall to the door, leaving Blanchefleur alone at the table with her mother. Blanchefleur touched the Queen’s elbow and murmured, “Mother? May I ask you something?”

Guinevere sipped her wine. “Surely.”

She had had a whole long speech prepared, but now that the moment came, all the words had flown. So Blanchefleur lifted a palm and said, “Whose daughter am I?”

In the silence, the Queen tapped her fingers once or twice upon her cup, and as suddenly stilled them again. “What, do you not know?”

“I don’t know who to believe. Elaine of Carbonek said I was Lancelot’s daughter. Lancelot said I was the King’s daughter, and his knights laughed behind his back.”

The Queen set her cup down and took a bite of meat and did not speak again until she had swallowed. “We will talk of this another time,” she said at last, and Blanchefleur did not dare to speak again until the King came.

N
IGHT
,
HOURS DEEP
,
LAY ON
T
RINOVANT
, but in Sir Ector’s solar the candles went on burning. It had taken the King an hour or two to hear all their news, and a little longer to take reports from his rearguard scouts. When the King’s men came upon Mordred’s retreat, there had been fighting in the woods. Both sides escaped lightly, for the King, with a smaller force, had drawn his men off and continued to Trinovant. But in the skirmish they had freed more of the prisoners from Camelot, including Sir Kay.

Perceval crunched down a mouthful of apple and said, “Mordred seems nervous.” The scouts and captains had gone, and only he, Blanchefleur, Sir Ector, Guinevere, and Arthur remained in the solar. “First he whips his men through a punishing fifteen-mile march to reach Trinovant, and then he runs at the first rumour of relief. What is frightening him?”

The King stroked his beard. “If we knew, perhaps we could use the knowledge to our advantage.”

“What are we going to do next?” asked Blanchefleur.

The King said, “The scouts said he is going west. We’ll follow and give battle when we can.”