Under Camelot's Banner (10 page)

“Well, that's done!” Mesek slapped his palms down on his thighs. “It is a wonder you bothered to call this council. As usual, the children of Lord Kenan will have things their own way.”

“Master, you agreed to hear what our ladies would say,” Bishop Austell reminded him coldly.

Mesek snorted. “And heard I have. By the time our precious and lawful queen comes to her home again, my men will be dead and my people burned out of their houses by the Treanhal. What then for me and mine?”

Laurel turned ever so slightly toward Master Peran. “Master Peran? Will you agree to wait for the queen's judgment?”

Peran's burn seemed to pulse in time to the leaping of the flames before him. “What good has judgment brought me?” he rasped. “I sought the law. It has brought only more murder, and kept this man alive.”

“Will you blame the law you broke?” sneered Mesek. “Be grateful
our ladies
are too tender hearted to order your death themselves.”

Lynet heard the sharp note beneath the chieftain's bitterness. She saw the way his hands curled in on themselves and how his teeth bared as he spoke. In that moment, she knew what she had missed before.

Mesek was frightened. His manner was that of a wolf at bay, snarling and lunging at the dogs, knowing that as soon as it ceased to attack it would die. What had been a matter of a few cattle and legal bloodprice had gone terribly wrong. Now his enemy was corrupting what rule there was left in the land. How could he not fear for his own?

Why had Peran even come? His actions showed clearly he was not interested in justice, only vengeance. That question had already been asked, but Lynet could not remember by who. She remembered Peran said he wanted Mesek shamed, but if Mesek had done murder before witnesses, shame was already upon him.

What truly drove Peran to this place?

She works by stealth. It was her name that Peran used to bring Colan to trust him. Our land the wedge between Mark and Arthur
. The remembered words assembled themselves in a new order.
Oh, God of Mercy. Laurel was ready to go to Morgaine. What if Morgaine already here?

Lynet drew herself up, wishing she could be as cool as Laurel. “We do not speak of what has been done, but of what must be done next,” she said. “What good will war bring us? It will prevent the planting and the fishing and the tinning, and that, in turn will ensure we all starve when winter comes. War will allow the raiders of all lands to rob us blind and hunt us like deer in the wilderness. Is this better than waiting for the queen and the law?”

Peran blinked, and then, he looked away. His hand scrabbled at the arm of his chair, looking for something to hold onto and finding nothing. Lynet did not let her gaze shift from him.
If you are going to deny me, Master, you must do so here and now, before God and all who gather here.

“Ever the orator, your sister,” remarked Mesek casually to Laurel.

“I bid you quiet, Master,” replied Laurel evenly.

“So you go to Camelot,” said Peran at last. “How do we know you will return?”

“That is simple matter, Master Peran,” said Laurel. “My sister goes to Camelot, but I remain here, under the watchful gaze of yourself, and Master Mesek, and all your men.”

That seemed to genuinely take him aback. “You'd permit yourself to be hostage to your sister's word?”

No trust. All burned away by what has happened, murder or betrayal or something more. Nothing but ash left in your heart.

“Would you accept anything less, Master?” Laurel asked, utterly calm. “If so, tell us, and we will surely agree to your terms.”

Lynet curled her hands, her fingernails digging into her sweating palms. This was the only throw of the bones they had in this gamble, and if it failed … then God have mercy on them, for no one else would.

“God's legs!” cried Mesek suddenly, slamming his cup down. “I'm beginning to wish you had just killed me, Peran. Let it be done. Let the girl go to Camelot and get the queen. Let her go to elf land and fetch a pot of gold. Just let it be
done
, or the Eirans and the Saxons and every other vulture will find us here bleating like lambs in the pen!”

Peran's face twitched beneath the mask of his burn. “Very well,” he said. “Let her go.”

At these words, the bishop bowed his head, and slowly, solemnly began to pray. But Lynet did not join him. She just watched Peran Treanhal as he watched her, wary, disbelieving. She thought of Laurel left alone in this man's keeping, and despite all she knew the depth of her sister's strengths, she shuddered.

God grant me speed
, she prayed in her own heart.
God soften the hearts of those I must plead before.

And God of Mercy, God of Life, protect my sister from this man, and from the one using him as a shield.

Dawn spread out damp and grey, touching Colan Carnbrea with its unkind fingers. Shivering, he crawled out from the rude shelter of his little boat. He'd traded his arm ring to a fisherman for that boat, along with a satchel of ancient bread and fish smoked to leather. He'd softened each in sea water as he sailed the channel. Four days he'd been on the water. Four nights he'd hid in unfamiliar coves behind rocks and in frigid caves to try to snatch some sleep when he could no longer keep his eyes open. He might have moved faster, but he had no water with him, and his thirst drove him repeatedly to shore, searching for some stream or pool that would be his next salvation.

Salvation. Colan's mouth twisted into a grim smile. No. He was beyond that now.

He rubbed his hands and blew on them, trying to breathe some warmth into his icy fingers. It seemed as if he had not been warm since he had fled Cambryn.

Since he had killed his father.

Time and again, he saw his hands reach for the dagger, felt the give of cloth and soft flesh, saw the startled look in his father's eyes. Time and again, he wanted to cry out to his remembered-self to stop, to think, to drop the blade, and yet that other self never did. He never could. Colan had come to welcome the thirst and hunger that racked him, as he welcomed the rough seas that rocked and tossed his skin boat. The bone-bare drive of physical need kept all other thought from him. It was the only respite he had left.

Hunched on his little beach, he finished his last piece of bread, licking the crumbs off the bottom of the satchel. The last scrap of fish he stowed away for later. He followed the little stream up into the scrub and bracken until he reached the place where the water flowed sweet. There he knelt in the mud and drank as much as he could hold. Then, abandoning the tiny boat that had brought him this far, he hoisted himself up the tumbled rocks and onto the cliffs, scrabbling to reach the level ground at the top. The rest of his journey he would make on foot and he was grateful for it. He could not lose the feeling that he was followed on the sea. That something far beneath the waters watched and whispered to him.

It frightened him, and he could not make himself believe that he only imagined that unseen presence. As terrible as Lynet had been standing before him drenched in their father's blood, far more terrible had been the merciless white fire in Laurel's fae eyes.

Haunt me over on the sea, sister. I will not blame you. But on land, you are no more than I.

The clouds hung low and heavy above him. Colan felt the weight of them every step over the rough and open ground. He used the line of cliffs as his guide. Below, the sea roared and crashed, shaking the ground. Colan imagined it was Laurel's frustration, and allowed himself a tiny, grim smile. The wind, though, lashed until it felt as if the air around him were ice. Father waited behind that wind, as his sister waited below in the sea. Lynet and her curses surely waited in the numb weariness that settled over his soul. If he stopped, if he faltered, together they would take him.

Colan's boot stubbed hard against a stone. He sprawled onto the heather and muddy grass, crying aloud as another stone banged his chin and scraped the skin he thought had gone numb. Father came closer. Colan shoved himself up onto hands and knees.
No. Not yet. You don't get me yet.

“Well, now, what's this?”

Above him, two dark blurs against the white-grey sky resolved into the shapes of men in leather jerkins and caps. One carried a spear. One carried a long-hafted axe.

The axe man nudged Colan's arm with a sandaled foot. His elbow buckled and he fell again.

“Can't say for sure,” said the spear man. “Is it a man or a fish, do ye think?”

The first one stroked his pointed beard with a thick hand covered in blue, swirling tattoos. “Fish, I'd say, and an old fish at that.”

They laughed at their joke, which gave Colan time to push himself back to sit on his heels. He was breathing too hard, and he could not stop the trembling that had seized his limbs. “I seek the Lady Morgaine,” he said between his chattering teeth. “I ask you, of your courtesy, to take me to her.”

This seemed to sober them. “Well now, perhaps it's a man after all,” said the axe bearer.

“Perhaps it is.” The spear man held out his hand. Colan grasped it, and let himself be pulled to his feet.

The axe man circled him, looking for arms, and to make him uncomfortable. Colan endured, concentrating on remaining upright. “What do you want of the Lady Morgaine, boy?”

What do I want?
“Mercy,” said Colan with sudden, lonely honesty.

The men looked at each other. “Well, she's but a small store of that.” The axe man stroked his pointed beard again. “Still, you'd best come and make your case to the lady herself. She's always ready to speak any who come openly in her name.”

They flanked him, as much to keep him walking as to make sure he did not make any threatening gesture. The rough, open grasslands gave way to stands of trees, and then to the muddy expanse of plowed fields. Beyond these, they came to a place that was more crofting than fortress. Wattle and daub houses stood between wickerwork fences. Folk in rough and plain dress moved about the place, feeding the animals, scolding the children who ran between the houses, setting their hands to all the mending and making that governed life in harsh country. A few watched curiously as Colan was led past them, but there was no sign of alarm. They were people who knew themselves to be well defended.

Colan's guards led him toward a long, low house with a thatched roof. Smoke rolled out from the hole in that roof, and the scent of a fire came to Colan like a benediction.

The inside of the great house was dim and smokey, but no more so than such a place normally was. There were fewer folk in here, for the day outside was fine, if cold. Some women sat in a circle, carding wool and spinning the thread. The scents of lint and fresh wool mixed with the smoke. Old men sat by the fires, alternately tending them and talking with each other between long pulls from mugs or leathern jacks.

The spear man shouldered some of these greybeard aside with the amiable roughness born of familiarity, clearing Colan a spot beside the fire. No one offered him a stool, but no one seemed to begrudge him a place either, and that was all Colan cared about. He sat on the packed earth, and stretched his hands toward the fire, getting as close to the flames as he could stand. Warmth of it spill deliciously over him.

One of the rough-hewn old men handed him a jack, and Colan drank cautiously. A sweet, fiery liquid rolled down his throat, making him cough hard, which in turn made his companions grin knowingly at each other. Not one of them spoke a word and not one of them hid their stares. Colan answered their silence with more of his own. He would not be discomfited by so simple a tactic. Despite the drink he'd just accepted, he did not expect anyone to name him friend or guest until the lady of this house had done so.

Finally, Colan's clenched muscles eased and he could stop shaking. A bowl of pottage and bread was passed to him. He devoured the plain fare, running his fingers around the inside of the wooden bowl to get every last dollop. When he at last was able to attend to something other than the food in front of him, he looked up and saw the axe man laughing, silently and not in a wholly good natured way.

“Wipe your chin, boy,” the axe man said. “The lady will hear you now.”

The man's tone stung Colan's pride, but he held it in check. He carefully wiped both face and hands before he stood, leaving the wooden bowl on the floor. The axe man grunted and led him further back into the hall where the women sat on with their spindles and carding combs, creating the fine white thread from a clots of wool.

Colan bowed courteously to this assemblage and was rewarded with a selection of cold and appraising stares. Not one of the women here looked to be less than a grandmother. Colan remembered his manners, held his tongue and waited.

He waited until his feet began to ache. He waited until his legs and knees remembered their climb of that morning and all the labors they had accomplished over the past days and threatened to begin shaking again. He waited until he wanted to grab one of these silent, ancient women and choke her with her own thread until she swore to show him to Morgaine.

“You are possessed of some patience, Colan Carnbrea, whatever else you may be.”

Colan started and saw another woman sitting in the shadows before him. Like the others, she held a spindle and twisted a fine white thread. She, however, sat in a great carved chair that he would have sworn was not there a moment ago.

It is fatigue and shadow,
he tried to tell himself, but he could not escape the understanding that he did not see her because she did not wish him to.

In Colan's experience, the mark of power in women had shown itself as the absence of color. Laurel was the image of their mother, who could call the seabirds down to rest on her hands, and could fill a net with fish in the middle of a hard winter just by wishing it so. Morgaine, however, was raven dark. Her skin was brown from wind and sun. Her long hands were solid and strong from her work, but had such a delicate touch that she spun a thread as fine as any spider's. This woman was as much stone and earth as his father had been, but there was fire there too. Her black eyes shone with it, and they seemed to see all he was and all he had done.