Under Camelot's Banner (27 page)

As this time was for breaking the night's fast and not a formal audience, the high table had been set on the dais's first broad step. A number of knights and ladies occupied it, but if the king had been there, he was gone now, so it was not necessary for Lynet to pause there first in acknowledgement and greeting. She could go directly to the trestle table beside the hearth where Hale, Lock and the Trevailians sat with a host of scarred and grizzled veterans. She passed open glances of curiosity and stories whispered back and forth. But she heard no malice in the sussuressence of the voices, and the hope remained secure within her.

Her men stood as she approached. They were clean and freshly clad, as she was, although less formally, and their hurts had been tended. Hale spoke in praise of their hosts and the comfort of the barracks where they were housed. They were to assist in the preparations for the return journey, he said. The knights Bedivere and Lancelot wanted to speak with them about the land and its conditions, their remaining men and the minute details of their territory and fortifications.

In case Peran and Mesek do not keep their word. In case the land had fallen apart before we return.
These thoughts settled uncomfortably in Lynet, but she gazed about her, at the strength and the wealth of the place around her. Lancelot … even she had heard that name. He was said to be the greatest among the cadre of the Round Table, come from across the waters, from a people who fled into exile when the Romans came to the island. It was told the other knights looked on him with jealous eyes because of his prowess in battle, although he had not been present for any of Arthur's greatest victories. Still, that he was to accompany them was a sign of the seriousness with which their claim was taken, and such a famed warrior would pick good men to follow him. They would go back in strength with the queen's justice.

“All will be right, Captain Hale,” she said. “Give them all the help you can. Keep nothing back.”

He bowed, his eyes bright with the same hope that warmed her within. “It will be my pleasure, Lady.”

“My Lady?”

Lynet turned. It was Daere who spoke, suddenly hesitant. A young boy stood beside her, in a neat but plain tunic, shifting from foot to foot, and staring at the floor as he did.

“My Lady …” the boy said. “Merlin would speak with you.”

Merlin?
The memory of the black-robed cunning man flashed across her vision, how he had watched her without blinking as she spoke.

“Yes, my lady,” said Daere. Her fingers fiddled with her skirt, and Lynet had the odd sensation she would have crossed herself if she could have done it without being seen.
Or perhaps it's just that I would.

“Very well,” she made herself say. “Then let us not keep him waiting. You will tell him I am coming,” she said to the boy. He grimaced, bobbed his head and pelted away, leaving Lynet and Daere to follow at a more sedate pace.

Like Cambryn, Camelot was a collection of buildings, sheds, stables, barns, coops and small yards clustered around the square of the great hall. Its people were busy with the thousand familiar tasks that came with spring. Shouts and whistles, snatches of songs and the livestock's grunts and squawks filled the mild air. Daere led Lynet across the yard and under the shadow of the high walls with their wooden palisades. In the northwest corner of the bustling yard, there stood a low cottage with a thatched roof. Its wattle and daub walls had been lime washed to keep them whole. It would have been difficult to imagine a humbler dwelling in the shadow of a great king's court. One wide window faced the yard, its shutters flung open to catch the spring's sun and bright breeze. At a table on the other side sat a grey-headed man bent over a sheet of vellum on which he wrote slowly and carefully with a pen made of a swan's white feather. As if sensing she watched him, the old man lifted his head, and Lynet looked into Merlin's bright blue eyes.

She froze, half-afraid, half-guilty, as if she were a child caught in some act of mischief. He laid his quill carefully down on and beckoned to her with one long, gnarled hand. Lynet did not know what to do. She had no desire to come near this man at all, but she could not have clearly explained what repulsed her. He had not yet even spoken a word in her hearing. All he did at the long council yesterday was listen. Listen to everything and miss nothing.

It seemed to her that her purse grew cold and heavy where it hung from her new girdle and without thinking she covered it with her hand. From his window, Merlin had not ceased to watch her, and to smile with grandfatherly kindness, ready it seemed to wait for whatever her reaction to his gesture would be.

With that complete freedom, it felt oddly as if she had no choice at all. “You may wait for me here, Daere,” and Lynet. She walked up to the ashwood door that stood open a crack. She pushed it back and stepped over the dark threshold.

The inside of the cottage was as humble as the outside. It looked more like an herb wife's home than anything else Lynet might name. Bundles of drying plants hung from the roof beams and filled the air with a thick and pungent scent. The long work tables held mortars and pestles, braziers, scales and weights, earths and ores. Their wood was scarred and stained with inks and dyes and other substances Lynet was sure she would be hard pressed to put a name too. Two things though dominated the room even more than the presence of the black-robed cunning-man in his plain chair. The first was the books. She counted ten great volumes, each the size of a Bible. The second was the low, round, stone well, covered tightly with a lid that like the door was made of ash. A voice from deep inside Lynet whispered that she truly did not want to know what waters might flow into such a well.

“Lady Lynet.” Merlin stood in welcome. “Welcome to my home, and thank you for coming.” He pushed out a neatly made chair for her. Lynet stared at it as she had the well.
I am being rude.
But she could do nothing but stand there awkwardly. She knew nothing of this man's rank or birth or place. She did not know what gesture of acknowledgement or obeisance to make to him, or even what title to call him by.

“Thank you,” she said because she could think of nothing else. She settled herself in the comfortable chair. The sun streamed through the window, its warmth raising the pleasant smell of herbs, parchment and earth, but she could not free herself of the awareness of the shadows behind her. It was as if they had weight and pressed too close for comfort.

“Did you wish to speak with me, Sir?” she asked, as much to distract herself as anything else.

“I did.” Merlin returned to his own chair. “I am come from telling the high king the things which you did not tell him, or the queen.”

The shadows crowded closer and the of cold bled through from her mirror again. “What is that, Master?”

“That while you travel with the folk of Camelot, the sea road is closed to them.”

No words came to Lynet. It took all her strength to remain impassive. Merlin's blue gaze never wavered. At last, she was able to say, “How do you know this?”

His smile was faint and filled with humility. “If I have a use to the high king it is that I can see such things. What concerns me is that you knew this, and yet said nothing.”

“I have told the queen of the
morverch
,” she said defiantly, like a child caught eavesdropping.

Merlin made no reply. It was not enough. She knew it, and so did he. Lynet could no longer meet his gaze no more. Her hands knotted themselves together in her lap. The terror and loss and anger of the storm rolled over her. Bishop Austell screamed once before he was dragged down and she could not remember whether that had truly happened or her fearful thoughts added it now. A lump filled her throat and the cold from her mirror seeped into her heart. “I made one bargain,” she said weakly. “I hoped to make another if necessary. We must have speed.”

“Yes,” said Merlin. “But it will not avail you. You have the enmity of the sea-women. They will not forget the betrayal of one of their blood, nor will they forgive it.”

She did not doubt his words. She had known this in some corner of herself, but she was unprepared for the pain that lanced through her as he spoke this truth aloud. She had done what was necessary. She did not regret it, but it had cost her the connection to her mother through them.

There might be a way yet. If she gave the mirror back to the sea, help would come, Laurel had said. She could open that road again.

But she would have to sacrifice her means of reaching Laurel. She could not do it. Not even to gain a few days.

Merlin still watched her, his gaze as heavy as the shadows at her back. When he spoke, his voice was distant. “You carry power with you, in the lines of your blood. You also carry it in trapped in silver and in dragon's blood.”

Anger, sharp and unbidden rose in her. How
dare
he? Spy and thief, stealing the thoughts from her heart and the words from her mouth. “I mean no harm to any here. What I hold was given to me freely and is mine.”

“I did not say otherwise,” Merlin spoke from within own frame again, no further away than his chair by the sunny window. “Will you let me see this power you bring?”

Lynet suddenly felt as if she had been asked to strip naked. She did not understand why the simple, mild request should effect her so violently, but it did. “I was told to keep it secret.”

“You were told more than that, I think.”

She bridled. It was too much. The summons, this close quizzing, that he had heard things he had no right to hear. “That is my own business.”

He did not relent, nor did his change tone in its mildness or directness. “You have ignored that other warning, and used the power.”

“That also is my own business.”

“It is, my lady,” he acknowledged. “But I make it mine to warn you. Accepting such service comes at a price, even though your servant bears you all the love in the world. You have already begun to feel it. The greater the service, the more it will cost you, until you have nothing left to give but yourself.”

“Why do you care?” she demanded.

Once more, Merlin answered the words, and not the tone. “Because the fate of my king and more hang on such things.”

“Such as myself?”

He nodded once. “Even so.”

“Then why do you not warn him against me?” she shot back.

If she had hoped to shock or anger him, she was disappointed again. Merlin calmly shook his head. “It is not a warning that would be heard, nor could it be. So, I must do what I can in other ways.”

“And what is it you can do?”

“What I do now, speak of what I know.”

“Then I thank you for your care and your warning, Sir,” she stood. She was done here, and she wanted nothing more than to be gone from this deceptively simply cottage.

“You are most welcome, lady.” Merlin inclined his head. “And will be again if ever you need any aid.”

She half-turned, but froze as these words penetrated her morass of thought. “You would help me?”

“I would.”

Lynet opened her mouth and closed it again. “I will remember.”

Merlin nodded his head once more, and with that, Lynet knew the conversation was at an end. She left, shutting the ashwood door behind herself as if it could shut away all that had just been said. She strode swiftly across the yard, barely aware of Daere scrambling to catch up with her. It was only then she realized she was still clutching her mirror. She lifted her hand away, clutching her trailing sleeve instead. She moved swiftly, but she realized she had no idea where she wanted to go. Truth to tell, she did not want to return indoors just yet. Perhaps there was a garden where she could go, somewhere anywhere where she could be under the sky and breathe the spring's fresh air, and regain once more the feelings of hope to soothe her jangled nerves.

Just as she turned to ask Daere about this, an approaching figure caught her eye. A noble man, one of the knights perhaps, she thought. Then she looked again. No. It was the kitchen boy from the day before. What was his name? Gareth. She only recognized him by the long red slash on his cheek and his raven black hair. Otherwise he had been transformed utterly. He was clean now, brushed and neatly barbered. Gone was the battered tunic, torn breeches and loose sandals, and in their place were fine linen garments of summer green and goldenrod yellow. A fur-trimmed green cloak streamed from his shoulders, a belt of enameled bronze circled his trim waist.

“God be with you, Lady Lynet,” he said, making a deep bow. He was taller than she remembered. “I trust you have been made most welcome among us?”

He had eyes of summer brown that returned to her the first openly cheerful gaze she had seen since she had woken this morning. Something in them soothed and warmed her, even as Merlin's had angered and frightened her. “That I am, Squire Gareth, thank you,” she said politely. “And I ask you to accept my apology for my treatment of you yesterday.” She offered a small curtsey. He was the high king's kin, after all, and above her in rank.

“It is I who should be thanking you, my lady,” he answered in a manner both merry and sober at once. “I know it is tragedy that brought you hear, but you have brought with you my chance at redemption from my own folly. For this I thank you with all my heart.”

He bent swiftly and kissed her hand. Lynet froze at once, as if he had slapped her rather than saluted her. He straightened, and she could not smooth out her distress swiftly enough.

“Lady, have I offended?”

“No. No, Squire.” She pulled her hand away, letting the fall of her sleeve cover it over. “It is nothing you have done.”

He did not believe her. She did not care, as long as he said nothing of it. Daere was frowning. No, she was glowering. Lynet feet began to ache. She should go, find somewhere to sit down. Be anywhere but here. “Is there any way I might aid you?” he asked. “You have brought about my release from punishment, and my knight has turned me loose for the morning …”