Under Camelot's Banner (23 page)

The answer came to her dark as a thundercloud and Guinevere shivered.
That is why my thoughts turn so easily to Morgaine. She is on the move once more. She said she would take my home, and all else that was mine. It would seem she is at last ready to make her attempt.

Then she heard a soft tread outside the door, and an equally soft knock. Despite her fears, Guinevere smiled. Fiona went to open the door, but Guinevere did not need to turn to know who it was.

Arthur stood in the doorway, his fond brown eyes shining in the light of the tapers and the fire. Guinevere stood to greet him, marvelling at how, after all this time, the merest sight of this man could still quicken her heart, be it ever so weighted down.

Her waiting ladies did not need to be commanded to withdraw as the king entered. Guinevere had long ago made it plain that unless other orders were given, she alone would wait on her husband. Some took themselves out into the corridor where they might be summoned easily, some retired to the alcove that held the great bed where they might be out of the way and yet still present should there be need.

Arthur came forward, and Guinevere opened her arms to him. For a long time they held each other, and she sighed, savoring the familiar strength of his arms that encased her in a warmth dearer and deeper than the rarest fur could ever bring.

“I am so sorry about Kenan,” Arthur said. “He was a good man.”

Arthur had not met the steward but a handful of times, but being as he was, he remembered Kenan, as he remembered anyone of good worth. It was one of his many gifts as a leader of men.

“He was,” Guinevere nodded. “And his elder daughter is a fine woman. I would have kept her here if she would have stayed.” She stood back from Arthur so that he could take the chair beside the fire. Guinevere poured a little of the fortified wine from the graceful jar waiting on the table and handed the gilded cup to him before pouring a cup for herself.

Arthur swirled the goblet and sipped thoughtfully. “And what of the younger daughter who comes to us now?”

Guinevere said nothing as she resumed her own seat, calling to mind the young woman's hard face and harder words. “It is pain that makes her bitter, pain and fear. She carries both with good reason.”

“That she does.” He took another sip of the wine and he too looked into the fire. “I'd say a curse on the head of Sir Tristan if I knew one strong enough.”

“Add one for Iseult on my behalf…. ah no. God forgive me.” Guinevere rubbed her brow. “They suffered enough for their foolishness.”

“And now we suffer for it. You most of all, my wife.” He reached out with his free hand and touched her fingertips.

She smiled at the gesture, but she still shook her head. “The foolishness I suffer from is my own,” she told him. “I should have gone home before. But I thought I should be here, keeping the heart of our lands strong for you. Well.” She set her cup down as a wave of illness born of far too much gall swept through her. “In taking such good care of the heart, I have helped sicken the limbs.”

“It is not so far gone yet, Guinevere,” said Arthur firmly. “We have time to make this right.”

“God grant it be so.” She could not bear to look at him. She could only watch the fire, searching the patterns of the flame for some better omen than the ones she felt lurking in the shadows at her back.

“What worries you?”

“Do you truly need to ask?”

“Morgaine.” Arthur whispered the word. He who had faced a hundred hosts in battle without flinching feared that by speaking that one word too loudly they might somehow call her up like the devil from Hell. “You see her hand in this?”

“Everywhere,” said Guinevere flatly. “Since Morgause's death, I knew she would return for me. She swore it would be so.”

“And yet you will go to Cambryn?”

“What happens if I do not?” Guinevere set her cup down and spoke bitterly to the fire. “The Dumonii fall into chaos, and she takes them all. Then, perhaps she makes common cause with the kings of Eire over the matter of Sir Tristan, and they come with their swords and their howling, and then what will be left of Camelot and the Britons?” Guinevere felt nerve and sinew tighten within her. “She will not destroy all we have built, my husband. God and Mary help me, I will not permit it. Not without a fight.”

She met Arthur's eyes then, and saw a resolve to mirror her own. He feared this particular war, a thing which perhaps only she knew, but he would not fail to fight it. Nor would he deny her part in it, for which she blessed him.

None of his meant he would not try to shelter her all he could. “Let Merlin come with….” he began.

“No.”

“Guinevere …”

“No, my lord. I will not.” He did not understand her refusal. He never did. On this one point there could never be agreement between them, and it pained Guinevere that it should be so. She knew it also pained Arthur.

“He can see farther in these matters than those of us with only mortal eyes,” said Arthur gently, reasonably. “If this is Morgaine's doing, you will need all the forewarning that can be had.”

“Forgive me, my lord, but what good did his sight ever bring?” she replied, also in tones of simple reason. “To speak with him is to bring disaster. To not speak with him is to pine away for wishing one had, because no matter how great the trouble his visions have brought, we cannot help but say, ‘This time I will do better if I can but know what will come.'” She folded her arms, gripping her elbows tightly, trying to bring some warmth to herself. “Only God can know enough to see tomorrow in safety.”

There it stood. He would not give Merlin up, and she would not accept him. It was as it had been since the days before their marriage, and would be until the day one of the three of them died.

Thankfully, Arthur made no move to continue his argument. Had he ordered her to take Merlin to Cambryn, she would have done so, but the command and its acceptance would have cost them both something. Perhaps she was being a fool not to take a sorcerer where she knew another lurked. But she had seen too much of the invisible world and the havoc it wreaked upon the lives of mortals. She would not turn to it even when she must stand before it. Not even to save Cambryn.

God will provide another way. Mother Mary will not desert us in this,
she told herself firmly.

“Now that we sit in such perfect harmony,” quipped Arthur mildly. “I must raise another dull and uninteresting question.”

Guinevere smiled, chuckling softly. “Speak your dull question, my husband. I am well disposed to hear it.”

He set his cup down, face and posture shifting subtly, and Guinevere knew his mind was turned from their room and the two of them to maps and plans, men and the thousand logistics of even the smallest battle. “You are certain Lancelot is the one you would have lead your contingent? Gawain will go, or Bedevere …”

She shook her head with a small smile. “I do not flatter myself that my mere reappearance as Cambryn's queen will at once lay to rest all grievances. There may well be challenges to whatever ruling I make, and I will need a champion. I do not like his manners either, but of all your men, it is Lancelot who can best answer such a challenge.”

He did not reply at once. He was weighing options, she knew, carefully considering and discarding other possibilities. At last he nodded, and his gaze turned outward again, seeing her fully once more.

“I wish he was not, but he is.” Arthur leaned forward, and softly, traced her cheek with one square-tipped finger. It was a familiar touch that brought with it a kind of aching gladness. “Will my queen be angered if I beg her to take care?”

She reached up and caught his hand, pressing it to her cheek so she could fully savor the warmth of his touch. “Never, Arthur.”

After that, there was no more need for words between them for a long time.

Lynet lay on the great bed, afloat on a sea of comfort like nothing she had ever known, and could not rest. She stared up at the unfamiliar shadow of the canopy overhead, her blood thrumming through her veins. She was safe, she was exhausted. She longed for sleep. Why would it not come?

She could not have asked for the audience to go better. Despite the mistake of courtesy regarding the kitchen boy, the squire, Queen Guinevere and King Arthur had responded fully to her demands. The council had gone on for almost half the day away in that courtyard with its laughing fountain. The clouds and sun came and went and the wind blew down bringing promise of rain while Lynet told the whole of her tale to queen and king, knights and the silent, black form of Merlin the sorcerer, whose gaze never left her.

There would be yet more talk tomorrow of strategy and men and numbers. A mass would be said for Bishop Austell by Camelot's Bishop. Perhaps then she could mourn properly, and the sight of him vanishing before her eyes would fade.

What was most important though, was the queen's promise. Queen Guinevere would return with them. There was no way to be certain that the queen's presence would bring stability to the land, but should there be those still inclined to war, she would be a far stronger rallying point than that of the untried daughters of her steward.

Let Laurel be safe,
Lynet prayed silently as she lay there in darkness.
Let her be brave. We will come soon.

She had prayed this same prayer countless times; as they walked across the country, as Captain Hale bargained for the horses with the valley chieftain whom they could barely understand, as they galloped pell-mell up the Roman road, and as they slept in the open huddled together beneath clouds and stars. She had clutched at her pouch and the mirror within, wishing to the depths of her soul that she could be alone for one moment, so that she could summon Ryol. He said he could show her all that was hidden, surely he could show her Laurel.

Lynet blinked. Dare, the maid Queen Guinevere had given her, snored softly in her truckle bed by the fire. She was alone now, or as good as. She did not need to wait anymore.

She fumbled with the purse's ties and brought out the mirror. Even a night beneath the bed coverings had not warmed the metal of its frame. She cupped it in her hands, gazing at her own face in its flawless glass. She was thinner than she had been, and the circles under her eyes had darkened in just these few days. It did not matter. What mattered was to reach for Ryol. She called out with all her strength of mind, and let that call stretch out, unreeling like a ribbon before her until the darkness reached up and pulled her down as if into a deeper sleep.

She woke in the garden. Sunlight poured down on her and the air was sweet and heavy with the summer scents of herbs and blossoms. Those same blossoms bobbed pleasantly in the gentle breeze that caressed her. The grass was soft beneath her slippers, and her feet no longer ached when she stood.

Ryol stepped out from behind his birch tree, looking just as he had before, in his ochre tunic and brown breeches. He came forward swiftly and knelt before her.

“You have returned, my lady,” he took her hand and pressed it to his brow. “I feared …”

This flood of feeling startled Lynet and she gestured for him to rise. “What could you fear?”

His slight hesitation told Lynet that there was in him a thought he decided not to speak. Instead he said, “A fine riddle, my lady. What do shadows fear?” He smiled as he stood.

“Have you an answer?” The peace and warmth of the garden worked on her as before. Her immediate fears were left behind with her body and she could indulge in a small exchange of wit.

“Of course.” Seriousness, as sudden and unexpected as his emotional greeting had been took him. “A shadow fears the light, my lady.”

The skin on the back of her neck prickled strangely at these words, and she could find no answer. So, it was she who changed the subject now. “You told me you could show me distant happenings. Can you take me to Cambryn and show me what is happening there?”

“It is a simple matter, my lady. Will you walk with me?” Ryol bowed, holding out his arm.

Lynet laid her hand on his arm. Some part of her had expected his touch to be cool, like the
morverch
, or the mirror itself. But he was as warm in his person as any mortal man. Ryol led Lynet between the silver-skinned rowan trees and out into a second garden that sloped up and away from the first. The plants here were homely herbs; fern, tansy, sorrel, sage and rosemary. Their smell was sharp, going straight to her blood and making it course more strongly. The touch of the air around her felt deeply familiar, but she could not have said why.

They passed a hazel tree. Ryol turned abruptly to the left, and all at once before them spread the
castell
of Cambryn. Lynet cried out in gladness before she saw that something was wrong. The stone walls of the cots glittered strangely, as if cut from crystal. She moved forward, and they rippled with each step she took, like a gemstone seen through water. What she trained her gaze directly on was solid enough, until she moved. Then, it rippled and receded again.

“What is this?” she demanded. “What is happening to me?”

“It is not you,” Ryol assured her quickly. “These things are not real, my lady. They are reflections only. Tell me what do you want most to see?”

“Laurel,” she answered at once.

Ryol led her forward, sweeping the way in front with his hand, as a man might clear branches from his path. The reflection of her home tore apart like scraps of mist, passing insubstantially by her shoulders, and revealing a new place ahead. Fear rose in her, but Ryol only tightened his grip a little. He pulled her through the fog that had been made of her home. Now she could see they stood beneath the eastern watch tower. The sky was heavy with the clouds foretelling another squall. The grass bent beneath the wind, but this wind Lynet could not feel, nor could she feel the cold that surely must fill the air. To her, it was still as warm as summer, and this made her shiver harder than any natural wind could.