Pendragon's Heir (7 page)

The man in the courtyard straightened and turned to her, sweeping rain and sweat from his eyes. Blanche, reeling toward him, looked into his face and saw recognition. The boy from the pavilion.

In that moment of terror she remembered that meeting only as something insignificant and long ago. She only saw his lean whiplike strength, the sword in his hand, and the eyes that had always been honest. “Please,” she gasped, glancing past Nerys, behind her, to the low stable door she had somehow exited, “help.”

As she said the word the door wrenched open and their pursuer came out into the rain. She had forgotten to speak Welsh, but her panic spoke for her. Perceval glanced from the terrified women to the knight—immense, armoured
cap-a-pie
, with a two-handed sword that made his own feel like a toy—and laughed, more from the unexpectedness of the thing than anything else.

“Stand behind me,” he said to the flame-haired damsel, and as she and her attendant darted out of the way he raised his shield, lifted his sword to shoulder height, and crouched low.

The strange knight spoke, his voice echoing inside the iron helm. “Do you seek death, boy?”

Perceval grinned. “I’ve yanked his beard once or twice. I can do it again.”

Something stirred beneath the massive iron plates of the knight’s armour—something that may have been a shrug. Then the great sword lifted like the blade of a guillotine: two steps forward, and a rain of blows fell upon Perceval, who staggered back just too late and fell to one knee, lifting a smashed shield on a senseless arm to receive a new attack. Blanche gasped; at any moment she expected to see the boy crumple like blotting-paper. But then he lashed out at the knight’s knee and somehow reeled to his feet out of the enemy’s reach.

The two circled in the rain with quick, taut steps. Blanche and Nerys, clinging together, shuffled to stay behind the boy. The knight lunged; there was a flash of steel like lightning and the fierce shriek of metal. Perceval maneuvered again, and Blanche found that she and Nerys were standing before the stable door.

On the other side of Perceval the enemy knight had also seen this, and Blanche flinched again as he burst into deadly motion. But Nerys, tugging her arm with white fingers, hissed in her ear. “Now!”

Blanche resisted for a moment. “Can’t we do something?” she groaned under the screech and crash of swords.

“We can run!”

Nerys pulled her toward the stable door. Blanche glanced back and what she saw remained frozen like a photograph in her mind long afterwards: two swords crossed in the air, and the planted feet and straining arms of both combatants. There was blood, mixed with rain, flowing down the boy’s shield arm. Then she was in the hallway of her own home again, dripping rain from an afternoon far away. Nerys slammed the wardrobe door and locked it, and even the dim light which shone from the keyhole had vanished when she removed the key.

Nerys leaned back against the wardrobe, closed her eyes, and took a deep, trembling breath.

Blanche’s legs buckled and she slid down the wall to the floor. She hugged her knees and breathed for a moment. “H-he can’t come back?”

“Not at present.”

“And the boy?” The boy in the pavilion, who had frightened her and robbed her. Again in her mind Blanche saw blood running down the young knight’s shield arm and with dispassionate wonder realised that somewhere in the last few breathless seconds, she had forgiven him. “Will he live?”

Nerys opened her eyes, her voice matter-of-fact. “I cannot tell.”

Blanche swallowed. “He’ll be killed!”

“It’s possible,” said Nerys. “But not, I think, probable. The sons of Orkney are made of sterner stuff than the brigands of Gore.”

A
N AGE AWAY IN THE RAIN
, Perceval heard the door slam behind him, and at that distracted moment his enemy disengaged. The next stroke caught the broken shield on his arm, scooped him aside, and flung him to the cobblestones. His enemy did not pursue the advantage, however. Instead he threw open the door of the stable and stood motionless, staring into the warm questioning eyes of horses.

In the sudden silence, there were shouts from within the castle and men-at-arms spilled into the courtyard.

The knight fell back a step and breathed out a curse, looking at Perceval.

“Do not doubt that this debt will be repaid with interest.” And he strode into the stable.

B
LANCHE SHOOK HER HEAD
,
A WAVE
of dizzy tiredness sweeping over her. “Nerys, I don’t understand. How did this happen?”

Nerys looked at her with quick compassion. “The thing we feared,” she said. “She has found you at last: Morgan le Fay, the Queen of Gore.”

“The sorceress? But who was the knight?”

“Did you not mark his shield?”

Blanche gave a barking laugh. “I did not!”

Nerys shook her head. “I forget that to you, a shield is not the same as a placard. He bore the Blue Boar, the device of Sir Odiar, the Queen’s paramour and cutthroat.”

P
ERCEVAL STRUGGLED TO HIS FEET AND
reeled toward the stable door. Just as he reached it, a screaming neigh warned him to dive aside. Even so, the rush of horseflesh that broke open the door almost swept him away. All the horses of the castle spilled into the courtyard at once, and in the midst of them the knight of Gore, riding easily without saddle or bit, raced them across the courtyard, burst open the closing gate, trampled down the rising drawbridge, and was gone.

In the lull that followed a cool silence and numbness fell on Perceval. His knees gave way and he sank to the threshold of the stable, cradling his gashed shield arm. Dimly, in the background, he heard the roar of flames.

“A
ND THIS
?” B
LANCHE GESTURED TO THE
wardrobe. “It goes back to Logres?”

“Yes.” Nerys laid her hand on it. “When I knew that Sir Ector would be gone, I bound the key to the Castle Gornemant so that if there was need we could go to Sir Perceval. Not that I imagined we would need it.” Her brows knitted. “How much does Morgan know? She could not have chosen a better moment for an attack. Did she know Sir Ector was away?”

A drip of ancient water ran down Blanche’s neck, but the shiver tingling her spine felt more like fear. “What now?”

Nerys shook her head. “If the Queen of Gore has found you, the best I can do is hold the walls for a while. Sooner or later she will find her way back.”

Blanche swallowed. “You mean that I’ll be sent back to Logres.”

“We knew the time was coming,” Nerys reminded her.

In the sudden relief of escape, Blanche could no longer hold back the words.

“I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to live in that place. The very thought of it makes me feel sick. Nerys, I’m so sorry, but I just
can’t
.”

6

See ye not the narrow road

By yon lillie leven?

That’s the road the righteous goes

And that’s the road to heaven.

The Queen of Elfland’s Nourice

I
N THE SILENCE AFTER
B
LANCHE
’
S WORDS
Nerys went down the hallway to the smashed door and stood silhouetted against the last purple and yellow streaks of sunset, risen up on tiptoe with her chin lifted as though sniffing or listening. At last she turned.

“Come with me.”

She plunged out the door and Blanche ran to catch up with her. Outside, a cold gale whipped through the trees, tumbling leaves and twigs across the lawn toward the house. Already the rose-bushes by the hammock were stripped of their petals. Beyond, in the orchard, the apple-trees creaked and groaned: the blast almost seemed stronger here. It whipped hair into her face and blinded her, and in that dizzy moment the gale seemed the wind of an incredible speed, as though she was rushing through a tunnel on the viewing-platform of a train. Then, unsettled and breathless, she pushed her hair back and struggled after Nerys.

The gate at the end of the orchard was open, with a snapped latch and one broken hinge. Nerys wrestled it upright and flung all her weight against it.

“Help me,” she called back. The wind snatched the words from her mouth, but Blanche understood the sense, if not the purpose, and threw herself against the gate. They strained in the teeth of the wind for a few gasping seconds. Then the gate closed, and the wind was gone.

Nerys, catlike, smoothed hair and skirts before gesturing to the gate.

“Look at this. Brute force. A hole blown open between the worlds.”

Blanche stared. “Is that where
he
got in?”

“Yes,” said Nerys. “Feel it.” She took Blanche’s hand and held it to the broken latch of the gate where a cold jet of air still whistled through. “That woman has done damage to the very weft of the world. If you opened that gate and walked through, you would be in Logres. And if anyone there knows about this…”

“Morgan knows,” Blanche whispered. “What are we going to do?”

Again Nerys looked at her with inexpressible sympathy. “It might frighten you to think of living in Logres, Blanche, but all our defences are thrown down in this world. Logres is the safest place for you now.”

She turned back to the house, walking quickly, and continued.

“They won’t think to look for you in Britain. We’ll telegraph Sir Ector and tell the servants you’ve been called suddenly away. Pack light, for we haven’t a moment to spare, and we may have far to travel. I don’t know how far it is to Camelot from the Castle Gornemant.”

To
Camelot. Now. Already. Blanche, choking down her dismay, caught Nerys’s arm. “But we’ll come back, won’t we?”

Nerys sighed and shook her head. “I know this is sudden, Blanche. Only believe me when I say that you are in deadly danger now, every moment, until we have you back in Camelot. Sir Ector and I can close up the house, mend the rift, and say goodbye to the neighbours. There is no point in exposing you to the danger of another journey.”

Blanche felt helpless—a cold dull panic which she was beginning to recognise. “Mr Corbin,” she said. “I want to say goodbye. Kitty, too, and Emmeline. I can’t just disappear. How will you explain it to them if I do? They’ll have to be told
something
.”

Nerys stopped walking and looked at her. “Blanche,” she said, and despite the gentleness of her words Blanche knew she was vexed, “do you really mean to put your friends above your own safety and the future of Logres?” A pause. “The decision does not rest with me, at any rate. Gather your things.”

When Blanche came downstairs with her bag she found Nerys already waiting by the wardrobe, key in hand. She had thought of another objection.

“What if that knight is still on the other side? The one with the Blue Boar?”

“Odiar loves not the company of true and faithful men like Gornemant,” Nerys said. “He will be fled or captured by now. Stand back.”

But when she fitted the key to the lock and turned it, there was a sudden muted roar and the door fought like a wild thing against Nerys’s hand. Through the narrow opening yellow flames shot out into the hallway, singing Nerys’s hair and licking the wallpaper. She said “Ah,” slammed the door shut, and turned the key again.

“
Heavens!
” Blanche cried, staring at the buckled and blistered door.

“The door is on fire,” Nerys said. “And the key can only be linked to another door from the Logres side.”

“We can’t leave?” Blanche looked hopeful.

“We can and we must. We’ll go out through the orchard.”

“But Morgan is on the other side!”

Nerys went to the doorway again and sniffed the night air. “Such damage is not done in a chamber. She would have done it in the open. Also it is raining in Britain. If we take the horses, we may slip through without being seen and ride away without being caught.”

“Are you positive it wouldn’t be safer to stay here?”

“Waiting to be attacked at any moment? Or leading the hounds of Gore a merry chase around Gloucestershire?”

Blanche bit her lip. For all Mr Corbin’s insistence that she make her own choices, it looked as if she would be forced into Logres, for refuge if nothing else.

“We must go on, and take the adventure that comes.” Nerys went out the door toward the stable, and there was nothing to do but follow.

F
LORENCE WAS
B
LANCHE
’
S HORSE
,
AN UNINTELLIGENT
but sweet-tempered bay. Nerys, who did not have a horse of her own, had taken Sir Ector’s, a retrained grey racer named Malaventure. The pair of them pricked their ears and swished their tails in the face of the wind between the worlds. Blanche fidgeted with the reins.

Nerys had already gone, taking with her a windfall apple. “If all is well, I’ll throw the apple back through the gate, and you’ll know it is safe to bring the horses. If not,
ride
.”

Then she had stepped through the gate. The quick-falling dusk made it difficult to see what happened next. Only Blanche had blinked, and Nerys was gone.

Deep inside she was panicking again, fearing that the worst must have happened when the apple landed with a
plop
on the grass at her feet. Then, without a pause to let herself think, she clucked to the horses and plunged into the wind, dragging at their reins.

It was dark beyond the gate, and again she felt that sense of limitless speed. Soon the wind lashing her face had water in it, and as the rain grew heavier, the wind died away and under shadowy oaks Blanche looked down to see that she was standing in a circle of blackened stones. Hurriedly she stepped out of it, with low calm words for the skittish horses.

No one was to be seen. Away to the right the trees thinned and the towers of a castle could be glimpsed rising out of the clearing, black against the dark evening sky. At the sight, Blanche’s scalp prickled and the blood hummed in her ears. She was engulfed, quite without expecting it, in a high and dauntless mood. Here she stood under weeping skies, she, Blanche Pendragon, who bore a name of legend. In that castle, all unaware, lay a witch-queen who desired her death, and echoing in the back of her mind she could still hear the fierce steel voices of swords, harsher and sweeter and wilder in her veins than any other sound on the green earth. And she had been caught and kissed by a brown boy from the woods, and he had paid for the pleasure in blood.