The Book of Mordred (33 page)

"I'm fine," Kiera said. "I am
not
hurt."

But he paid her no heed.

More people came to see what all his fuss was about. At the castle gate, he tossed the reins to a nearby squire and lifted Kiera off the horse.

"I can walk by myself," Kiera assured him, but he didn't set her down, so she pressed her face against his chest, unwilling to look at the people, to let them look at her.

She felt him climb the stairs. There was a back way to the room she shared once again with her mother, now that the Queen was in Brittany with Lancelot. But Bayard was new to Camelot, so perhaps he didn't know where the women's rooms were. He headed for the Great Hall.

Kiera tried to make herself smaller.

Then she heard her mother. "Out of my way!" Alayna demanded, her voice shrill with anxiety.

Finally, finally Bayard set her on her feet.

The next moment, Alayna almost knocked her over. She threw her arms around her. "Are you all right? What happened? Are you hurt? Oh, Kiera."

"She is uninjured, madam," Bayard said, more loudly than necessary—for the crowd's benefit. "Just shaken and frightened. She was set upon by two local ruffians, but I intervened in time. She has not been hurt."

Her mother took her chin in her hand and looked into her face, then hugged her again. "Oh, my poor, poor dear."

Voices called out from the crowd, demanding details.

"Who was it?"

"Where?"

"What happened?"

Why didn't they stop shouting? Why didn't they leave her alone? All she wanted was to get away from them, all of them.

Bayard explained. He said: "By the duck pond. Beyond the north pasture. I was exercising my horse when I heard her scream. I don't know the youths' names, but I've seen them before. I ... I think somebody better go back there and see to them. They were trying to drown her. I was so enraged that I ... did not take into account that they were little more than boys, and unarmored."

Kiera remembered the way the one boy's head had snapped back on his neck, and how the other had been thrown against the tree. She stole a glance at Bayard, then looked back down at the floor.

Still holding onto Kiera, Alayna dropped into a deep curtsy. She took Bayard's hand and pressed it to her cheek. "We are forever in your debt, kind sir."

"My Lady," Bayard murmured, and kissed her hand.

There was a sudden movement in the crowd. The people in front of Kiera were parting, not reluctantly as they had for Bayard and Alayna, and without being shouted at this time. They moved aside soundlessly, and Mordred strode into the sudden clearing that had formed.

He looked first at Kiera, then quickly to Bayard, and back to Kiera. "Are you all right?"

"She has had a bad fright," Bayard said. "But I came in time to see they did her no lasting harm."

Mordred didn't even look at him. He put one hand on Kiera's shoulder and the other, in a gesture mirroring Alayna's, under her chin. "Are you all right?" he repeated.

Kiera nodded.

"What happened?" he asked in what Kiera always thought of as his dangerous voice—soft and slightly husky.

"Nothing," she whispered. "Nothing happened." How could she tell them that the youths had tried to drown her as a witch? In the stillness she thought she could hear the breeze in the trees again, the far-off quacking of the ducks, the raspy breath of the two youths.

Then, "Sir Bayard rescued the maid," called a voice from the crowd.

"Did he?" Mordred's cool gray eyes shifted to Bayard, who inclined his head in acknowledgment.

"Yes," someone said, and then another.

"She was attacked by a pair of ruffians, and Sir Bayard came along just in time to save her honor."

She didn't correct them. She didn't tell them that they had called her witch.

Someone said, "Justin has gone to see who they were."

"About to rape her, they probably were."

For a moment, everyone was talking, then they were all still again.

Kiera closed her eyes, reliving it:

The spilled bluebelb ...

Eldred's swollen lips ...

"
She's uninjured, madam," Bayard said. "I intervened in time. .
"

She felt their solid grips on her wrists and ankles, tasted the water again . .

"
By the duck pond," Bayard said. "I heard her scream...
"

She saw Lowell's body, like a boneless thing in the water, and heard the
thud
of Eldred against the tree.

"
I did not take into account that they were unarmored...
"

She shook her head to clear it.

"Bayard," Mordred said, acknowledging the man with an all but imperceptible bow.

With a tight smile Bayard again inclined his head.

The crowd began to make way again, for them to pass, but then there was a commotion near the door. Would she never get away from all these people?

"What is it?" asked Bayard, who had started to follow Mordred, Kiera, and Alayna.

"Make way, make way," a huffing voice called. After some shoving and complaining, finally one of the older knights pushed his way through—Sir Justin, who had not gone with King Arthur's group because his joints were so stiff that in rainy weather he was barely able to walk. He waded through the crowd with his peculiar rolling gait, all the while dragging by the shoulder a boy of no more than ten, who looked and smelled to be a goatherd.

"My Lord," the stocky knight managed to puff out when he saw Mordred. He steered his reluctant charge toward them. "I was riding out to that duck pond yon fellow was talking about, when I saw this young laddie break from the woods, heading for the castle like the devil's own hounds were after him." He pushed the boy closer. "Tell 'im what you told me, boy."

The goatherd pulled his gaze away from the ornate woodcarvings and wall hangings, beyond the sumptuously dressed lords and ladies in their everyday clothes. He looked at Mordred, probably the nearest thing to a king he would ever see, and gulped.

"Tell 'im what you saw, boy." Justin gave him a little shake.

The boy's voice was a whisper, which they leaned forward to hear. "Well, sir, one of the goats, Teaser, he goes off from the rest of them, sir—"

"Not that part, you young fool." Justin cuffed him.

Again the boy gulped. "Eldred and Lowell, sir," he whispered, "an you please, sir."

There was a sigh from the crowd, the release of a communally held breath.

"And," Justin urged him. "And..."

Kiera felt fingers digging into her hair; hurting. She felt her lungs empty and aching, with the water pressing to get in.

The boy took another breath—his one moment of importance—and looked, for at least two heartbeats, directly at Mordred. "They was dead, sir."

Mordred's eyebrows lifted.

"An you please, sir. Eldred, his skull wor bashed in against a tree, sir, and Lowell, his neck wor broke. Sir."

Bayard sighed. "I never ... In the heat of the moment ... My only thought was to get them away from the girl."

Mordred said nothing, only looked at Bayard appraisingly.

Bayard said, "I never meant to kill them."

"You never mean to kill anybody," Mordred said. "I remember that."

"Mordred!" Alayna gasped. "Bayard has—"

"Bayard was a nephew of the wizard Halbert. You do remember Halbert?"

The vision of her mother, and the sword, and the tall blond man with her mother's features and the empty eyes came back to Kiera. And Halbert ... But that memory slipped away.

"Didn't you hear what they tried to do to Kiera?" Alayna said. One hand still encircled Kiera's shoulders. Now she rested the other on Bayard's arm. "Sir Bayard rescued her."

"
She's uninjured, madam," Bayard said. "I heard her scream." She saw him shake Lowell until his neck snapped. "I intervened in time.
"

"Certainly Sir Mordred, also, would have helped," Bayard said silkily, "had he been there."

Mordred's chin raised slightly, but he said nothing.

The rattle of a pebble. Her basket sinking in the pond. The roughness on her palms as she slid on the ground. She felt their fingers trying to pull out her hair. She couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe.

Bayard's gaze surveyed the crowd. "Please, somebody, find out the families of the youths. Despite Sir Mordred's doubts, I had no wish for their deaths, no matter what crime they intended against this child. I would make restitution to the parents." He laid a hand on Kiera's head.

She ducked, edging away, and Bayard was left with one hand in the air. He took Alayna by the elbow, and smiled. "Shall we get the lass out of the crowd?" he murmured and started to force his way through, still holding onto her mother.

At the doorway, Kiera turned back. Old Justin was ushering out the young goatherd who was still trying to take in all he could of the Great Hall. Mordred stood in the center of the diminishing crowd, his gaze hard and intent on the backs of Bayard and Alayna. And the rest of the people were beginning to drift away, many of them no doubt headed for the duck pond.

I heard her scream,
Bayard had said.

But try as she might, Kiera couldn't remember screaming.

The next day Bayard called on them, to see how Kiera fared.

And the day after he came again, bringing as a gift an intricately woven basket, much finer than the one Eldred and Lowell had thrown into the pond, and he said he would be pleased to escort Kiera and Alayna on a flower-gathering picnic if they'd so honor him.

No, Kiera told him, she didn't quite feel up to it.

But he came back the following day, with a different basket and the same offer. And then again, and again, until her mother agreed they would go.

He came even more often after that, one time bringing a pretty lace handkerchief, and another some sweets in a painted tin box, and—on Kiera's fifteenth birthday—a pink hair ribbon edged with silver thread.

"Thank you," Kiera said for each of the gifts, and handed them directly to Alayna without really looking at them or Bayard. Except for the time he gave her the ribbon. That reminded her too much of the one she had lost on the sunny hillside draped in magic gray. The images would give her no rest: she and Mordred returning ... a curl of Nimue's golden hair hanging below her hood ... the
thud
of Pinel's sword into the ground ... Agravaine—his face as pale as death—Agravaine...

Kiera dropped Bayard's ribbon into the midden.

"Oh, Kiera!" her mother said in exasperation when she asked after the ribbon and Kiera told her what shed done. Alayna paused in her weaving and gave Kiera a long hard stare.

Kiera pretended to concentrate on the cloth she was making. It was aqua, a shade she knew would make her look sallow and unwholesome, but she had chosen the dye because it reminded her of Gareth's eyes.

"You should be more careful of things that people have given you."

"Yes, Mother."

"Sir Bayard has been so kind ... so generous..."

"So constantly
present.
" Kiera pictured the man, his fine, large teeth flashing as he laughed, his hand resting on Alayna's arm. He was good at getting Alayna to laugh. So had Agravaine been, though Mordred never was. "We hardly have any time to ourselves anymore," Kiera said. "Why, he has only been here once this morning, so I imagine he'll be back any moment now."

"Kiera," Alayna said in a warning tone.

Kiera pretended not to notice. "Why do we never see any of our old friends anymore?"

"We don't have any old friends."

"Well, what about Mordred?"

"What about him?" There was some of the old tension back in her mother's voice that hadn't been there since her mother had been so concerned about her. "Don't blame me if Mordred feels he has outgrown us."

Kiera let her shuttle drop from her hands. "What has Bayard been saying about Mordred?"

"Oh
Bayard!
" Alayna flung her shuttle angrily across the room, causing the loom to tip precariously, bunching the threads. She got up and walked to the window. Quietly she started again. "Mordred has been very busy with the governing of the country. Very busy." She picked absently at some imperfection in the stone that formed the sill.

Kiera looked away, confused by the sudden bitterness in her mothers voice. She said, "Well, but now Arthur is coming back." And Lancelot was bringing Guinevere. It had taken the Popes threat of excommunication to bring such a measure of accord.

"Yes, and then everything will be happy and agreeable. Is that what you suppose? After all that has happened—the adultery, the killing, the fighting at Joyous Gard, the changes Mordred has made back here despite Arthur's express commands—now the Church says, 'Give her back,' and everyone will say, 'Oh, what a fine idea! Why did we not think of that?'"

Her mother's vehemence was uncharacteristic and unsettling. Kiera picked up her shuttle and studied it. Very softly she asked, "Why does Mordred hate Bayard?" Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alayna make a vague gesture of dismissal.