Under Camelot's Banner (24 page)

A plume of smoke rose from the tower's open top. Beside it stood a single tall and slender figure. Lynet knew at once that this was Laurel, come out to look over the land, for any sign of danger, or hope. Three men stood at the tower's entrance way, all alert, all eyeing each other. Two were strangers, Peran and Mesek's men. The last was Daveth, a square youth with a thatch of brown hair. He was Captain Hale's eldest nephew, his sister's son, and seeing him there brought a rush of relief to Lynet. He would watch Laurel well. Any danger to her would have to get past him and would not find that easy.

“Can we see her more closely?”

“Yes …” The distraction in Ryol's voice made Lynet look at him. Where her attention was all on Laurel's distant silhouette, he was casting about, like a hound uncertain of a scent. At the edges of her vision, the world glittered and rippled again.

“What is it?”

“I don't know. Something. Forgive me …” He reached out his free hand and slashed it through the air, tearing through the glittering whirl of color. Tower and Laurel and guardsmen all fluttered away like torn silk, and they were inside.

After a dizzy moment, Lynet recognized Father Lucius's chamber. The priest, as well as being Bishop Austell's assistant, was her father's scribe. His chamber was a place for scraping vellum, mixing inks and copying out letters. Tidy stacks of vellum and parchment lay beside stained mortars and pestles and untrimmed quills. It was frigid in the winter, because the brother would not permit a real fire in the room. A great wooden writing table and high stool stood beside the window that had the most solid shutters in the whole of the keep. On it sat an unfinished page of boldly lettered Latin, probably part of his great work to copy out the psalms. It had been meant as a gift for Lynet's mother, but she had not lived to see it finished. Now Father had not either.

Father Lucius was not at his work, however. Instead, at one of the two smaller desks sat Peran Treanhal. She had not known he could write, but he did so now, slowly and carefully, scratching his quill against the vellum, his fire-ravaged face as hard and grim as if he looked over some losing battle.

“What does he write?” Lynet made to step forward, but Ryol held her back.

“Wait,” he said.

The door opened then, and Mesek walked in. Peran looked up, and in the next breath shot to his feet, knocking the bench backward and dropping the quill, which stabbed down onto his uncompleted letter, leaving a great black blot to drown the words he had laid so carefully down.

“How did you know?” breathed Lynet, but Ryol made no answer.

Mesek regarded Peran with contemptuous eyes. “So, here you are,” he said with his false mildness.

“The priest told me you had squirrelled yourself away in here.” Mesek was, Lynet saw, very careful not to move any closer.

Peran drew himself up, recovering from his shock. “A wise man might fear to meet his enemy alone.” He nodded toward the corridor. If there were more men outside, they kept themselves out of sight.

Mesek shrugged. “Wisdom is one crime I've never been accused of.” Deliberately, he turned his back on Peran, and closed the door.

Peran's fingers rubbed together, itching for a weapon, Lynet was sure. The pebbled skin on the back of his burned hand wrinkled and bunched, but he made no other movement. “What do you want?”

“To offer you compensation,” replied Mesek sticking his thumbs in his broad belt. “For all that you have suffered.”

Wariness filled Lynet, and not a little fear.

Evidently deciding Mesek had not come there to do murder, at least not immediately, Peran reached down to pick up the bench. “Since I doubt you are about to impale your own head on a pikestaff, what compensation could you offer me?”

“Freedom,” said Mesek simply.

Peran froze, his big hand clamped around the bench's board seat. “What?”

Mesek crossed the room, peered out the window and pulled the shutters half closed. Peran stood, the bench forgotten and stared after the other man as Mesek leaned himself against the wall beside the window. “You've sold yourself to Morgaine the Sleepless and you are finding that she drives a hard bargain. I've been thinking over all that has happened in these past days, and I've come to say I'll help you out of that bargain, if you're willing.”

Hard and bitter laughter bubbled out of Peran's throat. He marched to the window, pulled open the shutter and looked in all directions before he shut it firmly, plunging the room into twilight. “If you think you can break a pledge made with the goddess, you are mad.”

“Now, now, Peran. If you keep on you will make me angry.” Mesek stuck his thumbs in his belt again. He wore no weapon openly, of course. Lynet wondered if he had concealed one somewhere. She could not believe he had truly walked into this room unarmed. “I am come with an honest offer that will profit us both.”

Peran wanted to lash out at the other chieftain. Every hard line of his body said so, but he also was unarmed and it took time to kill someone with hands alone. That left him with only words and it seemed he had but a poor store of those. “Honest offer? You murdered my son!”

This repetition of his charge left Mesek quite unmoved. Lynet expected he would answer with more scorn. Instead, he said quietly, “Peran, we both know it is Morgaine who killed your son.”

Lynet gaped at this, but Peran staggered as if he'd been struck. He shook his head violently, seeking to scatter Mesek's words. “No.”

Slowly Mesek pushed himself away from the wall. Slowly, he took a step forward, and then another. “She is the reason you came to my doorstep, not some half-starved cows. She sent you to test me in some manner. You failed, and it was your son who paid when the word came from the ravens and their mistress that you must take me down.”

“No!” shouted Peran more toward the door than to Mesek. It was as if he willed it to open, for someone, anyone, to enter and save him from these words.

But Mesek did not relent. “I was not to fall right away, and not by myself. She does not think so small. Cambryn and its family must come with me. So, rather than let you take your vengeance as you so plainly desired, she ordered you instead to drag me to court so that you can goad the young Colan into breaking the steward's family for her. She likes a broad and open road when she travels, does Morgaine.” Mesek was close enough now to grip the work desk with both hands. “But there are other powers than hers, Peran. Some of them serve in this place.”

Lynet's throat closed. Ryol's hand tightened around hers, but he showed no trace of surprise.

“You knew!” she cried. In answer, Ryol only held up his hand to motion her to silence.

Peran had jerked his head around and Mesek's mouth curled into his broad, axe-blade of a smile. “Ah, now you look at me like a man.”

The chieftains faced each other, the desk and smeared letter the only barrier between them. Peran's scarred flesh burned red, but the rest of his face had gone white.

“What do you want?” he croaked so softly that Lynet could barely make out the words.

“What you want,” answered Mesek. “To be free of outlanders and sorcerers and madmen. We could be if we held Cambryn.”

“Impossible.” Peran he did not move. He was waiting to be contradicted, Lynet realized.

Mesek did not disappoint. “I don't believe so. I've seen enough of the place now, and of our Lady Laurel and her men. It requires only patience and nerve.”

It was Peran's turn to smile, a mirthless, lopsided grimace. “The steward's daughters are nothing. They are already dead and this place is already Morgaine's.”

Anger roared through Lynet. This man had come demanding justice! They had stood in the midst of death and murder to do the right, and he meant to repay them by compounding vile treason!

“You can offer me nothing,” said Peran. Beneath the anger that stormed through her mind, it occurred to Lynet that Peran sounded sorry.

“Before you say so, ask yourself why does Morgaine want this place? If a fortification was all she wanted, she could have had Tintagel with much less of a fight. Mark's all but gone now. She could reach out her hand and snap him in two, and Arthur's oldest ally in our lands would be gone. She'd have a dozen clans rally to her sides in an instant and she could take Cambryn at her leisure. But she does not do this. She bends her will to this place. Why?” Mesek spread his hands, appealing to Heaven itself, but it was clear that Heaven or Hell had already provided him the answer. “Because there's power here. Power that she covets, but could not reach until the keep was split open for her.”

Silence lingered between the two men. The pebbled expanse of Peran's scar twitched as if it was a living thing. His burned fingers rubbed together, fast and hard. Mesek waited still and patient, ready to let Peran fight his own internal battle.

At last, Peran found his ruined voice again. “You say there is power here that could overthrow Morgaine?”

Mesek nodded slowly. “It came from the sea with Kenan lady, and she handed it to her daughter when she died.” He spoke carefully, holding the words out to tempt his enemy. Lynet felt herself grow cold as she realized what power he must speak of. Beside her, Ryol had also gone utterly still.

A fresh realization dawned in Peran's eyes. “This is why you let yourself be brought here, why you agreed to be heard by the queen.”

“You also are not so ignorant as you seem.” Mesek leaned forward again, his voice quiet and urgent. “Come, Peran. This is our moment. You are no coward. Let your deeds make your life something other than a fresh slavery.” He held out his hand.

Peran did not move, he just stared, his eyes bright with pain and fear. What did he see, what did he remember? Lynet was ready to burst with the need to reach them both, to shout loud enough to bring every man in the keep. She would cry out their treachery to Heaven itself and see them die for it.

Laurel! Laurel! Where are you!

At long last, Peran reached out and clasped Mesek's whole hand with his burned one.

“Good,” said Mesek simply.

“What now?” said Peran, releasing his grip, as if he did not like the touch of the other man's skin. “She will come, you know, and soon.”

“I thought as much,” said Mesek, nodding judiciously. “We must watch our lady Laurel closely, until we can find some hint as to this power her mother left her. Her position now is lonely and precarious, and she is wise enough to know it. She will, I think resort to it before long. After that, the only question will be whether it is better for our ends to lead her to the altar or the graveyard. Now,” he said. “I'll go. It would not be good for us to be found lingering together. Someone might suspect. We'll talk again later.”

Lynet could stand no more. “Get me out of here!” she cried to Ryol. The spirit nodded and tugged on her hand, walking her back and away. Walls closed about the room, and they stood instead in the empty and silent corridor.

“You knew!” cried Lynet again. “You felt this somehow, before it had even begun.”

“I did,” Ryol acknowledged soberly. “It is part of my service that I must sense the secret threats to those who are my masters.”

A dozen thoughts lanced through Lynet, but only one went straight to her heart. “Then you knew of Colan's conspiracy, you knew how …”

Ryol did not wait for her to finish. “I did,” he admitted.

“And you did nothing!”

“What could I do?” he asked quietly. “Your sister would not come to me, nor accept any service I might give.”

Lynet bit her lip, and felt nothing at all. “Laurel must be told what these two plan.” For all she stood surrounded by the reflection of her home, she felt the distance between herself and Laurel like a rift in her soul.

Something Lynet could not read shone deep in Ryol's dark eyes. She did not care, so long as there was a way to give warning to Laurel. “It will be difficult,” he told her.

“What must you do?”

Ryol shook his head. “It is not for me, but you, lady. You are the one who is still rooted in the mortal world and what's more, you are bound to your sister by blood and sympathy.”

“Then what must I do?”

“You must make of yourself a vision, lady. You must craft a shape of yourself, and you must send that forth into the mortal world.”

She hesitated for a single heartbeat. This was strange beyond words, but if this was how she could reach Laurel, then she would do it. “How?”

Ryol nodded, as if in approval. Still his eyes shone strangely as he spoke, and Lynet felt something in her clench tight.

“You must will it into being. I will help you. We must go to your sister first.”

He took her hand again and steered her down the corridor, sweeping his hand before him. In dizzying succession they were in the corridor, in the great round room of the central tower, in the kitchen garden, and above the earthworks. Then they stood in the dim recesses of the watchtower at the base of the worn stone stairs.

“Your sister waits above,” said Ryol. “I am bringing only you this close so that you might master your shaping before you must try to speak with her.”

“What must I do?” she asked impatiently. Laurel would surely be descending soon, or one of her guards would go up to fetch her. Then she would be surrounded by people until dusk, and by then … by then who knew what more might have happened?

Ryol moved to stand behind her. He placed both hands upon her shoulders. “You must want,” he said simply. “You must want to be in this place, in the here and now of it with all your strength. I will help you give that desire shape. Then you must walk up these steps and you will be with your sister.”

Lynet set all doubt and thought of absurdity aside. She faced the steps and she concentrated with all her might.

I must warn Laurel. I must be inside the tower to reach her. She is up above, and I must be here, so I can go to her. I must be in the shadows, and silent so the guards outside know nothing. I must go quickly, before they come looking. I must be with Laurel. I must warn her. I must …