Camelot Burning (24 page)

A riot has erupted.

Twenty-Nine

Merlin grasps the windowsill. “The calm is over.” He seems almost relieved.

Azur sets a hand upon my shoulder. “Do not sacrifice yourself for this. Think of the greater good. Merlin's weapon will be instrumental in saving many in the years to come. Let the lives of the queen and her lover be the price. There is no dishonor in that.”

I pull away from Azur's hold. The machine I build might kill Marcus. The freedom I'll lose in saving Guinevere and Lancelot will be my penance. I back away for the door, faster now. I need to do this. And I hate that I'm hesitating.

“The weapon,” Merlin rasps. “You're gambling with its progress.”

“We need the king's champion,” I say. “Arthur needs Guinevere. And so do I. With all that's happened, you're right: my apprenticeship is as good as over.” It's devastating to admit.

Merlin's cloudy eyes flock to mine. “Finish Victor. That is your task. We won't need Lancelot if his squire can do what you ask of him.”

My fingers tense into tight fists. How can I ask so much from the squire whose heart I'll have to break?

The sorcerer folds over. He huffs, clutching the arms of his chair for stability. Traces of shins and ankles peek through his cloak. Flash with light. Fade, taking with them muscle and bone. With one quick pull, invisible nails scratch the wood of the chair already cleaned of its upholstery. I jump at the sudden movement.

“Have I ever told you how much you remind me of your mother?” His voice drops to a whisper, an octave too low. “You're headstrong, inquisitive. You've inherited her brilliant mind, and if she hadn't given up her own apprenticeship to become Lord William's wife, she'd be arguing the same as you. But it cannot be so.”

“She was also your—” I whisper. My mother.

My mother whose only connection to the mechanical arts I thought was her cedar music box that played a song: old, poignant, sad. Merlin's favorite Celtic ballad. Who fretted over my place in Camelot, brushed my hair. Who'd told me since I was a child not to forget how danger lurks in every corner. Who I thought was sent to torture me on some days, but understood the anguish that came with knowing so much about our mechanical world.

Impossible. It cannot be. But I regard my uniform and realize I should have known a master seamstress in Camelot would have ways of creating a garment fit for the catacombs.

Merlin's head wrenches back toward the wooden rafters of his tower, leaky and old, where sunlight pries through. His teeth clench, his eyes squeeze shut. The skin on his forearms and neck pulls back, strip by strip.

Azur reaches for my hand. “Vivienne, you must stay!”

But I back away and flee down the stairs. I have to stop the execution.

Even if it means a copper noose around my neck.

I hurry past the crowds, fighting my way to the square. In the gardens, I hold my breath in case I were to run into Marcus—he's not there. The courtyard is filled with opium smoke and nobility preoccupied with a spontaneous croquet match. They whisper about the affair, watching the chaos with delight. A justice-hungry serf rallies the crowd, his fury growing like a renegade flame on spilled gas.

“ … how long should treason go unpunished? If it were any of us, our corpses would already be rotting! But the king wanted to dismiss them quietly, perhaps hoping the foiled attempt to steal Excalibur would distract us … ”

He is no older than I am. Scarred, blackened fingers only a serf would have point to the castle in accusation.

On the gallows' bare stage, two snakelike copper ropes hang as Arthur sits off to the side in a formal gentleman's jacket. His eyes lose themselves in a spot across the way, dark-circled and empty of conscious thought.

“ … no choice! Treason must be punished, no matter serf or royal!”

The trial begins.

I push through, casting away any wonderment of what the sensation would be like, having my neck sliced open from a cold, twisted cord, thin as a bracelet of silver and braided with steel to make it deadly like an old-fashioned noose.

“Let m
e through!” I shout. “I need to see Arthur!”

But the judge has a voice louder than mine, and no one steps aside, certainly not when the queen and her lover could hang. The judge paces in front of Guinevere, shackled in a plain brown dress. My heart breaks when I see how defeated she looks, how humiliated that her nighttime sins are not secrets and could never be in Camelot. Next to her, in front of his own noose, stands Lancelot.

Somber and calm, only his eyes move about, gauging the aims of the guards from the parapets above. I've seen Owen's aim; I know the archers are just as precise. A handful of arrows would strike the heart if Lancelot were to fight back. They wouldn't need a second try.

The sound of a wet splatter draws my attention to the stage. Serfs hurl fruits past their prime at the prisoners. Guards press the people back, gesturing their weapons with empty threats. A wave of drunken nobility creates a mob in the open space. A woman with rouged lips laughs unceasingly, stepping in my way. She knocks me over, and my palms scrape against the ground.

I pull myself to my feet and race onward, weaving like a ribbon for the stage. “Arthur!” Each cry more frightened than the last. I'm not brave. Why on earth did I think I could do this?

On the stage, Owen is missing from the lineup of squires. He must be elsewhere, eyes trained on the scene without a stitch of emotion on his face. But Marcus is there. Of the squires, he's the only one not standing at attention. Instead, his arms are crossed, and he watches the judge sentence a brother to death for treason, a crime of which he was nearly guilty. The edge of his mouth purses with anger at his inability to stop this.

“The court finds Guinevere, Queen of Camelot, guilty of high treason … ”

The crowd roars, and it's deafening. Many have stopped caring about the trial and point at the evidence of Arthur's new age: his gray hair and the deep lines in his face.

“Arthur!” I scream. Guards push a section of the crowd back, and we shift away from the stage.

The judge reads Lancelot's verdict. “ … guilty of high treason … ” More cries from the crowd.

No one gives a damn about letting me through. Their fiery eyes lock on the gallows as they scream for the sins of the privileged. They know nothing of Morgan's influence.

“ … hanged by the neck until strangled, decapitated, or emptied of blood … ”

The executioner sets the copper rope around Lancelot's neck. Drums patter the last song the knight will hear. He is lost in thought while Guinevere rocks in a fit of sobs. Perhaps she kneels on the very spot her dead body will lie. I cannot give up.

“Arthur!” I scream, managing to get by a handful of smoking dandies making bets on the likely way Lancelot would die.

One of them, with tall hawked hair, grabs me. Marcus glances over as eager hands go about my waist. I throw my elbow into the dandy's stomach, but he holds tight.

There's no hesitation. Marcus pushes past those in his way for me.

No, no, no. He cannot be a part of this.

The dandy pulls me closer, fingers gripping my skin until it hurts. “Hello, pretty. Where are you off to in such a rush?” he growls in my ear. The rolled
hashish
between his lips twists with his words, catching on the piercing in his tongue.

Marcus fights the crowd for me as the dandy's lips move closer to my ear.

“What is it, girl?” he asks, condescension dripping from his words. “Can't be that there's someone else, can there?”

And Marcus is so close that I'm
sure he's heard the question. He waits for my answer. I'm deliberate as I shake my head to convey a message I'm both desperate and terrified he'll understand.

“No one,” I tell both, pulling the boy's arm from my dress. The roars of nobility and peasants alike fade into a hazy blur. Marcus is all that remains. Despite the people between us, my message has reached him. His mouth parts, and he returns to the stage. A hand runs over his face to clear his mind. My throat tightens.

“Any last words, Sir Lancelot?”

The knight shakes his head. I force myself to the stage.

“ … God have mercy on your—”

“Arthur, stop!” I shout. Arthur's eyes find me, the lone voice in the crowd not calling for death or mercy, and lifts a hand to the judge.

Camelot looks upon the queen's rumored accomplice. My mother stands nearby, dressed in plain clothes. Clothes that wouldn't attract attention. She shakes her head to caution me.

Arthur seethes. “I should arrest you,” he says as Lord Henry holds him back.

“Please, your majesty.” I tremble from cold blood rushing through my veins like steel restraints circling my wrists. “The queen and champion are not guilty of these charges.” Instantly, there are shouts of anger. One voice sounds like my father's.

Marcus is unmistakably visible in my periphery. I watch as he hesitates the same way he did in the farmlands and marches for me as though he's realized what I'm about to do.

I catch my breath. “Morgan cursed—”

“Morgan cursed not just the castle that day.” Marcus pushes me back and steps forward himself. “She also cursed the queen and Lancelot. They didn't know what they were doing.”

My voice is frantic. “Your majesty, the squire doesn't—”

Again, Marcus pushes me back. “I know this because I left Camelot without permission and heard Morgan confess it in the farmlands. She's responsible, your majesty.”

I step next to Marcus, but he won't acknowledge me. He waits to hear if his place in Camelot will be the price for his confession. Arthur would declare a lesser punishment for a squire than a lady-in-waiting, surely, even if Marcus is a serf.

“No, your majesty, don't listen—” I shout, but my voice gets lost in the madness, and someone seizes my arm.

“Quiet, you foolish girl!” my father growls.

A bout of nervous chatter comes over the crowd at Marcus's audacious declaration, his mentioning of “the witch, Morgan.” Arthur towers over him.

I pry myself from my father's grip, but he yanks my elbow back. “This isn't their fault,” I say, not caring that eyes watch me,
ears hear me. “Morgan's curse on Camelot—”

“You cannot barge onto a stage to argue something so ridiculous! Are you mad?” His angry whispers might as well be shouts.

Arthur crosses his arms, gauging Marcus. “Squires are forbidden to leave the castle without consent.”

Gossipy whispers encase Marcus. He swallows. “I know, your majesty, but—”

“Not many
serfs
have been offered the privilege of Camelot, boy, and today's the wrong day to challenge me. I return to my wife and champion in each other's arms, and you dare tell me it was not their fault?”

Marcus rakes the back of his hair. All eyes are on him, all pointed fingers. I want to take it all away, and yet, if Arthur grants him mercy, I'll have to ask Marcus for more.

He shakes his head. “No, your majesty. Not like that. It's just what I heard Morgan say.”

Fire erupts in Arthur's eyes. The chattering amongst the crowd is louder now. Too loud for their mad king.

“You had nothing to do with it, do you understand?” my father huffs. He pulls me further from the stage, one strong hand gripping my arm demanding my attention. “You will not make a fool of yourself. Hide in our tower! Go!”

“No,” I say, pulling my arm free. “I cannot hide who I am.” I put on a look Owen carries well. I'm not a child. I'm not my father's protégé. There's a place for me in the world, and there's nothing he can do to stop me from seeking it.

The crowd grows angry. Chants and heckles and all sorts of fury rise up from Marcus's words.

It becomes too much.

“Enough!” Arthur shouts. But he doesn't call for a third noose. His eyes bore into Guinevere's, Lancelot's. “Get them off this stage. I have to think. I cannot see this now … ” Shaking hands cling to his temples. “Not now.”

The shocked crowd is silent until the rallying serf loudly objects.

“They're guilty of treason! An embarrassment to your kingdom!” He slurs his words with hatred, and the crowd's reaction is violent.

Despite, Lancelot's eyes lift to the sky in thanks for the mercy he didn't think would come. Guinevere exhales a shuddering breath. The judge signals the king's orders to the guards, and Arthur's wife and champion are thrown from the stage. Marcus is lost in the crowd, but I'm close enough to reach Guinevere's hand as guards usher her past me. She smiles in thanks as our fingers touch. A lifetime of shared moments, gone. Impossible now.

Camelot is an opera of vicious threats and infectious violence.

But then from the gates, “Help!”

Someone has arrived. Wounded. They lead in a man I don't recognize, whose stringy hair is as black as kohl with a beard to match. He must have been riding nonstop for days. Armor branded with Camelot's seal, a faded dragon tattoo on his neck. A knight returned from the quest, clutching the guards in gripping pain as they take him to the courtyard. No one flocks to his side to gloriously welcome him. Shock stills us all.

“Get help from the infirmary!” one guard's blood-curdling scream demands. Blistering burns on the knight's face and neck shine against tattered clothing. One of his arms has been hacked off, and the poor man is delirious with pain.

“The king,” he manages. “Where's Arthur?”

Arthur breaks through the crowd. The guards drop the knight to writhe in agony while they call for help to be swift. “Gawain,” the king breathes, seizing the knight's vestments.

Red spittle streams from the knight's lips. “Your sister. She's days away with an army the likes of which I've never seen before.” The pitiful man spews up bile and blood. “I only managed to escape after the Spanish rogues took my arm. She killed other knights, Arthur, ones who were about to close in on the Grail. We knew. Even without the coordinates, we could damn well tell. The euphoria, the temptation. You never came to help … ”