The Chessboard Queen (28 page)

The child’s cry of discovery awakened him. He shrank back as the little girl knelt beside him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t be afraid.” She patted him reassuringly. “I have called Pincerna. He will get someone to help you to the villa. You must have come a long way.”

He relaxed under her gentle voice, but made no response.

“Letitia, dear, I don’t think he can talk.” Her mother’s arm went around her. “Poor man. Someone must have hurt him terribly. Look at the scars on his arms and legs. I don’t think he understands us. I wish we could tell him that it will be all right now. Guenlian will not turn him away.”

Lancelot was too exhausted to fight the men who took him gently and led him up the hill. He did not know where he was or who had found him, but the next morning he awoke content. The call which had driven him had finally ceased.

Chapter Fifteen

“Lydia?” Sidra asked her daughter softly. “Is anything wrong?”

Lydia was up in the watchtower, staring at the ocean. It was too foggy to see very far. Even if the day had been clear, there was nothing to see but water. Sidra wrapped an arm around her. She tried not to act like a protective mother when she felt the chill through the girl’s dress. It wouldn’t work, she knew. They loved each other dearly, but not as mother and child. Lydia’s devotion rested with her foster mother, across the channel. Sidra knew she would have to learn to accept this as she had counseled other women to.

“Lydia?” she asked again.

Lydia shook herself, awakening from her thoughts. “Mother, you shouldn’t be up here; it’s freezing!” she scolded. “You must take care of yourself.”

“Just what I was going to suggest to you, my dear,” Sidra rejoined. “What were you thinking of? You seemed so far away from me.”

She hadn’t meant it to sound pathetic, but it did. Lydia smiled at her.

“I wasn’t very far at all. My thoughts were not following my eyes. I was wondering if Arthur was getting ready to move to Camelot yet.

“You know,” she added quickly to forestall the hurt she feared Sidra would feel, “you should come, too, this year. There are hardly any fosterlings left now. This place is more for the soldiers on watch than anything else. And I don’t believe that you’ve been a hundred feet from Cador since I was born.”

“That is true,” Sidra conceded as they entered the stairway back down to the hall. “There was always so much to be done here. And this is where I belong. I don’t think I would make a good guest in another woman’s domain. It was a kind thought, my dear, and I know the reason behind it. I wonder if it would have been so dull for you here if your Cei had come for the winter.”

“Mother!” Lydia blushed. “I did not say it was dull—”

“But it is,” Sidra interrupted dryly.

Lydia ignored this. “It is true that I am very fond of Sir Cei and he seemed to reciprocate my feelings. But he can’t leave Arthur whenever he wishes. He has many duties.”

“He might let you know that he ‘reciprocates your feelings’ in a letter, don’t you think?” Sidra asked.

Lydia’s chin took a stubborn tilt and Sidra feared that she had bungled again.

“He would write, I know, but I’m not sure that he can.”

“What?” Sidra tried to check her reaction. “I have too many old-time prejudices,” she berated herself. “Why can’t I be as unjudgmental about him as I am with the fosterlings? Goodness knows, half of them have never seen soap for washing before they come here, much less a stylus and parchment.”

But she thought that Cei could read and write after a fashion. She remembered careful, painfully correct letters on a provisions list he had made for her to fill. The spelling was uncertain and the grammar nonexistent. One could almost smell the dried beads of sweat that had dripped from him as he composed it. She wondered if he had seen the letters sent by Lydia to Guinevere, the easy, flowing classical script, the allusions to the ancient authors. He must have. She felt a rush of pity for him. Better to be virile and illiterate than laughably ill-educated.

They entered the hall. Only a few people were there, although it was mid-afternoon and most fosterlings had completed their duties. Echoes followed their footsteps as they crossed to the fire. One person was next to it, lying on an old couch, languidly munching pickled vegetables.

“I should have known that Geraldus, at least, would know enough to stay inside in this gloomy weather,” Lydia laughed.

“You look quite like the old times!” Sidra exclaimed. “I remember my grandmother bewailing the modern generation. She had been invited once to a home where people actually sat on benches to eat. She left at once, insisting that only peasants and slaves had so little concern for the proprieties. She reclined at every meal and never spent less than an hour, even at breakfast. How nice to see someone keeping up the old customs!”

“Only now,” Geraldus said, as he swallowed the last turnip, “it’s a sign of laziness.”

He stretched his arms, but did not rise.

“I must be growing old,” he complained. “I find the quiet here very soothing. Even my chorus has been less abrasive since we’ve been here. But I suppose it’s far too peaceful to Lydia, eh?”

“No, not at all,” she lied. “But I did promise Guinevere that I would meet her at Camelot this year. Of course, that was before her . . . um. . . .”

“That’s all right, child.” Geraldus grimaced. “The whole story is gossip all the way to Armorica and my part is usually forgotten. The truth is, Guinevere was thinking of not going to Camelot this summer, so you don’t really need to be there at all.”

“Oh?” The one syllable covered an octave as she tried not to show her disappointment.

“Don’t tease her, Geraldus,” Sidra interposed. “Your brother will be there and your father. There is no reason why you couldn’t visit them for a time. Say a month? Could you stand that?”

“Oh yes!” Lydia nearly clapped her hands and leaped into the air, but was restrained by her new sense of maturity. “Oh, thank you, Mother. When can we go, Geraldus? It’s almost spring, isn’t it?”

“There was no rime on my drinking cup this morning,” he conceded. “In a few days, when the weather clears, we can start. But we may have to go to Caerleon first. The mud may not be solid enough at Camelot yet.”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I’ll start packing.”

She rushed to her room, not to pack but to dance across the floor, imagining all her friends swirling around her—and then only one. And the dancing stopped as she put out her hands to him.

• • •

Ecgfrith waited in the cold outside his father’s hall. His flaxen hair was dulled gray by the water. He had stood there so long that his braids were sodden and heavy and his leather vest smelled strongly of the animal it came from. He was icy to the marrow, but still he waited, unwilling either to enter or to leave. Finally the door opened and his cousin, Cissa, appeared.

“Well?” Ecgfrith demanded. “What did he say?”

Cissa pulled his cloak more tightly about himself. “Can’t we discuss it somewhere dry? What have you been doing out here? You smell like a drowned dog.”

“Never mind that. Tell me what happened. Will he do it?” Ecgfrith snapped, but he followed Cissa as he headed for his hut.

“He still wants revenge. You needn’t worry about that. He wants to know just how sure you are about the people there: few guards and many hostages. He won’t be sympathetic to another disaster.”

Ecgfrith winced. “I have it planned exactly. I can get us in behind the guards and take them before they realize we are there. But it must be soon. They’re not so watchful this time of year. They think we all hide in burrows until the sun comes out.”

“Aelle knows that. He’ll let us go and take any man willing to share the risk and the reward. My brothers, Cymen and Wlencing, will come. They are bored with hunting. But Aelle won’t do it himself. He said that it would not be a dignified way for a war leader to behave.”

“More likely, he thinks he’s too old to row and climb rocks. He’s right. It’s not important, as long as he won’t oppose us. He has preferred to forget that I carried out my part in the taking of Guinevere without a flaw. I got that girl to him. It was those devoted idiots of his who panicked and lost her.”

The other man shrugged. “I don’t care about the past. I will do my part in this and expect an equal share in the ransom. It is time my household expanded and that cannot be done if I have no rewards for those who would serve me.”

Ecgfrith did not deign to answer that. He would make sure that no part of the credit for this fell to his ambitious cousin. Aelle was already far too fond of him.

“Then it is settled,” he said. “We can leave tomorrow at dawn and be at Cador in a week’s time.”

“Agreed.” Cissa gave his hand to it. “My men and I will be ready.”

But he had an uneasy feeling about the whole endeavor. The day before he had seen two crows battling in the air for a piece of bread. In their fury, the crust had fallen, to be caught by a sea gull which had swooped from nowhere to retrieve it. One shouldn’t ignore such obvious signs.

• • •

The rain and sleet finally abated. At the first sign of clearing, Lydia reminded Geraldus of his promise. He had not forgotten, but he gathered his gear together with great reluctance.

“It may turn rotten again,” he warned her. “There have been storms in April before.”

“No, Geraldus, it’s spring inland,” she pleaded. “It will be invigorating.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait for a larger group to travel with?” he cautioned. “You know what happened the last time I escorted a lady through the forests.”

“Oh, Geraldus! No one wants to steal me away. I’m not at all important. We’ll be fine. Please! Can’t we go soon?”

Every ounce of her body was thrown into her plea. Geraldus gave in and nodded. She immediately leaped upon him, hugging and kissing him, and he tried vainly to calm her down.

“Yes, thank you, that’s enough. It’s fine, Lydia. You can save all that for Cei. You waste it on an old man like me. Lydia, my dear, you’re embarrassing me.”

Lydia backed off, still grinning. “I’m sorry. Do you think he’ll be glad to see me? I’ll go and get ready. Can we leave tomorrow?”

She hurried off without waiting for an answer. Geraldus sank down on the couch, worn out with her enthusiasm. The air seemed darker now that she had left the room, and he felt suddenly lost and sad.

“Tell me,” he said to the emptiness. “When
did
I begin to grow old?”

He sensed her nearness before the warm, soft arm crept around his neck. Her breath was also warm as his alto whispered in his ear.

“I do not think you changed, musician. Does the life you have now seem tiresome?

There was a note in her voice he had not heard before. He could not tell if it was hope or fear.

“Of course not!” he answered with false heartiness. “Only a moment of self pity. Humans have them. It’s nothing at all. I presume you know that we are going traveling again. Are you all prepared to work on the new piece I set you while we ride? We have too much to do on it to waste time sulking because it’s a little dreary and wet out.”

There was no answer. Geraldus raised his voice. “I know that all of you are here. Now, either you work or you will never see the baths at Caerleon again.”

Another stretch of silence. Then the tenor section began a hesitant tuning and the basses and sopranos discordantly hummed the opening bars of the song.

Geraidus sighed. Twenty years and more he had trained them and they still could sound like this! He wished for the millionth time that he could see them. He was sure some of the voices were different this trip and he hated breaking in new singers. He put his hands over his ears.

“All right! I take it you want to come with me. We start tomorrow as soon as the fog lifts. It will probably be afternoon by then so you may spend the morning finding your notes. There is no excuse for such cacophony!”

His voice was pitched forcefully by then and a servant girl entering the hall jumped and dropped the bowl she carried, thinking he was yelling at her. Geraidus sighed again as he apologized, realizing that the mulled ale in the bowl had been for him. He would never completely be reconciled to the life that fate had given him.

• • •

Ecgfrith, Cissa, and their company made camp in the woods along the shore and spent the evening cutting green wood to bend over the stretched, oiled leather each man had brought. They would be crude boats, each large enough for one man only, but they would be enough to carry the men out beyond the rocks, a mile down the shore, and still keep the knives and spears dry. Cissa was impressed with that part of the plan; it was the actual invasion that worried him.

“Tell me again,” he ordered Ecgfrith. “Where are the guard towers? How many to a watch? Where will the others be? You make it sound too open. People could be wandering about anywhere. I don’t trust it.”

Ecgfrith repeated the plan. By now it was a rote lesson for him. Then he explained why he knew it would work.

“I tell you, they are so arrogant that they don’t even think of attack. Their only purpose is to watch for our boats and light a signal fire to alert the armies inland. They feel so invulnerable that they let a woman run the entire place.”

“Yes, perhaps.” Cissa’s worry was becoming more mystic and less rational. “You are sure that your men know that we are going for hostages only? I have no wish to be a part of the murder of women and striplings.”

Ecgfrith made an effort not to shout. How could his father so favor this indecisive coward?

“It will be simple. We come in under cover of the fog. We wait until they have all gone in to eat. They will all then be in one place. We take care of the guards with little noise. Last, we simply surround them and announce that they will return with us. There will be nothing they can do. They will have no weapons.”

Cissa did not answer. It seemed to him that the gods were not in favor of this. The man-price of these hostages would have to be as great as Ecgfrith insisted for this to be worthwhile. He regarded the ocean roaring below. He had not seen it since his arrival in Britain in autumn. He had not remembered the sound of it as so loud, so angry. Were even the beasts of the waters trying to warn him?