Camelot Burning (5 page)

Six

The music is still ringing in my ears by the time I realize what my traitorous feet did: flee an embarrassing moment the rest of Camelot just so happened to witness. I don't look back, but it's out of sheer humiliation that I can't bear to see if Marcus and the others are watching. Instead I push on, passing the trees lining the gardens. Finally, out of sight, I stop and keel over, thankful for the silence.

Silence interrupted all too soon.

By something less celebratory.

At the city gates up ahead, no more than twenty meters from where I stand amid the trees, guards hiss at one another. And then I read a single phrase on one's lips:
she's here
.

I hide under an evergreen's low branches, in view of both the tense gates and enraptured celebrations. In the tents, drunken nobility are in a happy state of ignorance. No one looks past the courtyard or everlasting feast. Marcus stands in shock, squires punching his arm in a teasing manner as flirtatious dancers surround them. He's without a smile, and that tugs at my heart.

“What is it?” the smooth and confident voice of Galahad calls. Heavy footsteps follow.

I press against the tree to hide myself as the knight storms past,
fusionah
unsheathed.

It's because of the guards' whispered words that Galahad's usual stoic disposition unravels. He paces, hair ruffled and face blurred. It's unlike him.

When a disheveled Owen arrives, Galahad wastes no time. “Arthur said not to shoot until he's seen her for himself.” Galahad nods once. “Get the king.”

Owen sprints for the courtyard, leaving Galahad lost in troubled thought. The minstrels' instruments go abruptly quiet as my brother reaches the tent. The eerie silence following is so much louder.

And then, a woman's voice, wobbling between panic and distress, reverberates from behind the gates.

“Camelot is in the business of keeping those in danger waiting this long?”

She's afraid or in pain, and her voice is colder than ice, and I know who she is. Archers on the wall are quick to aim; they declare they were ordered to shoot her on sight. They wait for Galahad's command. But he hesitates. His balance is unstable from a day's worth of self-poisoning.

“Only those who've been exiled,” his voice cracks, striving for ferocity. The echo is unnerving.

Silence is her response, but in it lingers the quietest rumble of footsteps. Many footsteps.

Through the low branches, I watch Arthur follow Owen to the gates. Several knights have joined, though Lancelot is strangely absent. They're close enough that I can hear their voices.

“Be calm,” Arthur says, bringing whatever discussion he was having with Owen to an end. “If Galahad is certain, no one else can know. Tell the minstrels to continue.”

Owen doesn't blink. “Yes, your majesty.” He runs at full speed back to the tent. The music returns.

Arthur acknowledges the guards. “Open the gates.”

They relay his command, and five engage the mechanism at the door, cracking back solid wood to reveal a white horse carrying a tall, frightfully thin woman in an old-fashioned cloak and hood.

The anxious steed forces its way inside; the woman glances around too often to be sure of her own safety. Guards click back the hammers of their
fusionahs
. Archers raise their bows. A row of men circle the entrance, goggles pulled down from helmets in case their weaponry would recoil in its emission of fire powder.

They shout and shout and shout, “Stay where you are!”

But the king won't order fire, and the woman ignores the threats. “Let her pass,” Arthur declares in a voice barely confident.

Her blinking silvery eyes search each corner of Camelot. They fall upon the king. “Arthur!”

She drops from her saddle and rushes to him, letting her hood fall, revealing long white hair coiling down her back. Arthur freezes as her skeletal arms go around his waist, apple-red nails resting at his hips. My eyebrows rise at that.

“You're here,” he says. “They said you'd come, but I didn't believe you'd be this foolish.”

She steps back. Her heavy eyes go wider than the kohl extending their corners. “Foolish? The African kingdoms were going to kill me!”

The kingdoms she speaks of are allied with Camelot, just as Corbenic is. Masters of architecture and science, they'd be the last in the world to carry out an execution without the most irrefutable evidence. This truth does not bode well for the woman in Arthur's arms.

But she is relentless. “They believed a lie, doubted my own word, even when the past twenty years proved otherwise! Even when I had proo
f
!
” There's a purse at her waist, and she pulls out folded letters. Her lip quivers. “I had no choice. You have to help me. You have to clear my name!”

I frown as the footsteps grow louder, and I strain my vision in the darkness for those who must be behind her.

Then I gasp.

A shine of moonlight piercing through the clouds reveals a black-armored legion carrying torches and gas lanterns. They're in the hills, on the other side of the wall blocking Arthur and his knights from seeing them. But anyone standing where I hide wouldn't miss a sight such as this: scores of soldiers too tall to be men wear black helmets, undignified and savage. Their eyes glow like the fiery tip of an iron that's been blasted in a furnace. Steeds the color of midnight have the same vile, demonic features. Flags blow wildly, black and red, nothing like the elegant crimson of the Pendragon flag.

As quickly as the moonlight reveals them, they disappear. Now, only vast farmlands. I blink quickly, searching. I'm tempted to fetch my crossbow, even if it wouldn't do a blasted thing. But I cannot risk being seen.

Arthur is shocked by the woman's presence. “No more than a day ago, Pelles ordered us to kill you. My God, what he says you did all those years … ” He glances at the watchful eyes of Galahad and the guards. “Merlin would be furious to know I've let you inside.”

The woman presses Arthur's hand to her face. “Then don't tell him. You cannot believe those accusations, Arthur. I'm your family!”

Arthur looks toward the celebrations. There's no sign of the hookah-smoking Merlin. “Family.”

She nods, and her eyes shine with cold hope like she knows Arthur's greatest wish.

Arthur hesitates. “They mentioned Lyonesse.”

The icy disposition in her face shatters. “Cruel lies. Your bride. Her home, her family. Arthur, I loved Lyonesse.”

He cannot be fooled by this woman's words. When Guinevere first arrived, her despair from losing her home, from her trial, from nearly being executed because of charges of sorcery—these were enough to keep anyone bedridden with grief for weeks. The stories she told about those unable to leave the damned kingdom …

Arthur wouldn't believe this woman, would he?

“You
know
me.” Slow and purposeful, her voice warbles
like a chant. “You fought for me because you knew to execute me would mean the true perpetrator of Lyonesse's demise would stay free. Remember, Arthur?”

And he must. Arthur's eyes look elsewhere as though reliving the moment all those years ago. Harps and fiddles and horns from the celebrations mix with the tension here. Knights hold back stumbling drunks boasting empty goblets. Arthur and the woman are quiet, but the guards won't rest just yet; their weapons are just as steadily aimed on her.

If this is really Morgan le Fay, then King Pelles might lead a battalion of soldiers against the disobedient King Arthur of Camelot.

What insanity has come over our king?

Arthur pulls her shoulders to his chest. “And that perpetrator was never found.” He takes a long breath. “I haven't seen Merlin tonight. Let's keep it that way. We'll put you in the main castle for now.” Arthur signals to the guards to raise the bridge. “No one here is to speak a word about this under penalty of death.” Each syllable expresses the utmost seriousness of Arthur's order.

“Thank you,” the woman breathes into his chest. “Brother.”

The guards blink in disbelief as Arthur's command forces their weapons low. They pull on the levers that activate the gates' closing mechanism, and the sanctuary of Camelot accepts the woman. And still, not far off, there are footsteps. So quiet, I'm fighting with myself as to whether I've imagined them. I inch forward to hear better, fingers digging into the soft earth—

A hand grasps my shoulder, pulling me from the tree's greenery. As a scream leaves my lips—all secrecy of my whereabouts be damned!—a hand clamps over my mouth.

“Quiet, you foolish girl,” Merlin rasps. I face him as he drops me, his hookah against his shoulder, warm and full of smoke, and a fierce challenge in his eye as he watches Arthur lead his guest into the main castle. A stark difference from how Merlin regards the uninteresting nobility of the court. He looks at the woman like she's his equal.

“Morgan's returned!” I hiss with more fright than I knew was in me. “Why would the king allow this? She was exiled! Corbenic said there'd be war!”

Merlin doesn't look the faintest bit surprised by the woman's arrival. He sets his mouth in a firm line and lifts into a crouch, resting on the stone of his cane. “Yes, that's her. Morgan le Fay, the king's older sister.”

With that, Merlin turns for his clock tower. I try to catch up with him, but his feet are surprisingly quick. “She's become much more advanced in her thievery of magic,” he calls over his shoulder. “Azur must know before I confront Arthur on his blatant disobedience.”

Shadows chill my skin, and I lock from my mind the ghostly images I saw. Magic could certainly render black-armored soldiers able to disappear and reappear at will.

We pass through the blacksmith's workspace for the cellar. Merlin lifts the heavy door and climbs down. I follow. “She said she was innocent—”

“Ha! She's a damn good sorceress now, I'd wager, from the looks of her. Even an accomplished healer like le Fay couldn't resist the taste of magic for that long.”

The memory of the woman's strange, silver eyes sends a haunting through me. I won't sleep well tonight. “Why would she return?”

The door to Merlin's tower opens. He carries himself up, two steps at a time.

“Oh, a multitude of reasons. Perhaps she's telling the truth, and there are other kingdoms more dangerous for her than ours. Maybe she's changed—stranger things have certainly happened. More likely, she wants control of Camelot.” I'm panting as we round the spiraled steps, but Merlin's breath is steady. “She's wanted it ever since her falling out with Arthur, twenty years past. Excalibur chose him to be the rightful king based on lineage. But Morgan—”

“Morgan's older,” I finish, recalling the sorcerer's initial description of her. “Morgan didn't agree with the declaration that Arthur was the rightful ruler.”

“Aye,” Merlin says with a nod as the last door cracks open. “She thought if she'd had the opportunity to extract Excalibur, it would have chosen her instead, leaving her Camelot's resources, including the Round Table and, well, me.” He watches the celebrations from his window, the blasts of color in the sky. His hand finds his pocket, and fingers lift a pinch of snuff to his nose. He draws in deeply.

“Was she right?”

Merlin hesitates as he considers my question. “No,” he decides. “I was there when Arthur extracted Excalibur. I was there when he was crowned.”

“Why wait twenty years for Camelot, then?”

“So she could master magic.”

“Arthur believes she's here in good faith.”

“Ha! I wouldn't trust Morgan to know the concept of
good faith
any more than I'd trust Caldor to have blood in his veins. When she left all those years ago, she vowed Camelot would be hers. Arthur would be foolish not to sleep with both eyes open.”

“And still he let her inside? Why?”

Merlin leans back in his chair. “Because he didn't believe she was at fault for Lyonesse's demise. There was no proof, after all, and she was his sister, his only family. For years, he had no one other than a step-brother, Kay, and me. And I only met him when he was fifteen, already a man and about to lead an entire kingdom. Losing his sister over a crown he didn't exactly want broke his heart.” His eyes dart about like they do whenever he's thinking, and for a brief second, the light hits him the wrong way, and a glint of white fire flits about in his pupils. When I look again, it's gone. Skewed moonlight and eventful evenings are no match for overactive imaginations.

“I hope to God I'm wrong about Morgan. I wish, I wish I'd never spoken with her that final day.” His fingers trace the handle of his teacup.

“Why? What happened?”

He regards me, the mixture of moonlight and colorful bursts in the sky combating the patterns tattooed on his temples.

“On that last day, I told her about alchemy.”

Seven

Blinding sunlight pours through the tall windows of the main castle as guards escort my father and me to the assembly room. I wring my wrists to forget nightmares of militia ghosts advancing through a fog. Of digging my fingers into dirt, contemplating seizing my crossbow to fire at a rail-thin woman who Merlin would later tell me does not come in peace. But it was a trick of the imagination. Certainly we're here for something else.

The clock tower strikes eight. I was supposed to have reported to Merlin, but Arthur summoned his council not two hours ago. Glancing out a window, I can see the top of Merlin's tower peeking over the gardens, acres away and might as well be so much further.

The guards open two wooden doors at the hallway's end, revealing a band of disgruntled knights and advisors surrounding Arthur.

The king leans on a long wooden table decorated with a crimson runner, only straightening sporadically to speak up against an outspoken advisor. Lanterns form to imitate candelabras, glowing an unnatural orange to match the fiery tension of Arthur's most trusted knights and holding their shape instead of dancing as real fire would. Silver trays offering tea and biscuits are ignored entirely, even by the ever-still Guinevere, sitting calmly in a wrought-iron chair off to the side.

The queen is lost in thought, far away until I've touched her shoulder. “My lady?”

She forces a smile. There are dark circles under her distraught eyes.

“Letters of correspondence should not matter!” an advisor named Lord Henry says in a vicious tone. Behind him, the eleven other lords in Arthur's council, of which my father is a member, nod in agreement. They might look to resolve this quickly, before Merlin would hear of this—none of them likes how the tattooed former sorcerer is the closest advisor to Arthur, and the unofficial head. “Every day, Spanish rogues grow closer to finding that which we seek, and you, Arthur, want to abandon the quest to reopen discussion about Lyonesse?”

I miss Arthur's curt explanation for why his council was called. Looking around, I note the state of the knights after a day's worth of celebration, their respective squires in tow. Smudged eyes are heavy. Hair is disheveled from uneasy sleep or graceful feminine fingers.

Owen is frightfully pale-faced with a frown he's destined to wear until at least the afternoon. He barely registers my presence.

A twitch rolls around in my stomach as I realize if Galahad's squire is here, then perhaps Lancelot's would be, too, even if the roguish devil himself isn't. Over my shoulder and by the window I recognize Marcus's lean frame, but cannot risk a direct look.
Why would a squire inquire so much about a handmaid?

“Did Pelles's warning mean nothing?” my father questions the king.

In Arthur's hand are letters. “These were verified,” he says.

“By whom?” Lord Henry retorts.

“By your king,” Arthur responds, eyebrows drawn as he asserts his status. “Morgan was wrongfully accused of sorcery. Framed for Lyonesse's demise—”

The lethargy of the morning finally breaks for clarity. A gasp escapes my lips, loud enough to warrant attention from Guinevere.

But then the door bursts open and in storms Lancelot, clear-headed, able to manage his steady gaze upon Arthur and then the woman he drags in by the hair. Her cries are stricken with pain. The wrinkled clothes beneath Lancelot's gentleman's jacket are no indication of his mental state. His eyes are sharp; his sense of vengeance, strong.

“Release me!” the woman screams through her pain.

“Knights on guard!”
Lancelot shouts. His grip around her hair loosens, and he tosses the woman to her knees in the middle of the room.

Guinevere is to her feet instantly, and my hand squeezes hers tightly. Morgan le Fay, the legendary monster of my childhood dreams, only feet away from me.

“Oh God,” I hear myself whisper.

Knights seize the
fusionahs
at their waists, Lancelot's the first to steady on Morgan. Hammers click back, and barrels aim at the mark. By the window, Marcus is slack-jawed and takes the longest to register Morgan's presence, staring like his worst nightmare has come to life.

Morgan cowers by Lancelot's feet, her eyes on the audience of hungry barrels and merciless faces, her upraised arms only rendering her more vulnerable.

“To your feet, witch, so we can send you to hell,” Lancelot growls. “She was in the main castle, Arthur.” The king's champion glowers without the appropriate respect for a king. “Either your guards got into more ale than the rest of us, or you've been easily swayed by a sorceress, and please tell me it's the former, Arthur. Please.”

Guinevere is eerily silent. Her chest rises and falls with fast, angry breaths. She was likely taught never to show emotional distress, lest she should be seen as hysterical. Perhaps this is why she stays quiet when the contrary would be more rational.

Arthur steps toward his champion. “Lower your weapons.”

The silence resonates with the men. Morgan's cheeks are wet with tears I didn't think a rumored witch could shed.

Lancelot's wide eyes show no indifference toward Arthur's guest. “Arthur, you cannot be serious!”

“Believe me, I am.”

Lancelot obeys as the rest do.

“She
is
here, then,” Guinevere whispers, shaking with anger. “Why is she here?”

I squeeze her hand. “Your highness—”

Her eyes flash at mine. To hell with accusations of hysteria. “No, Vivienne.” With a voice close to a shuddering sob, she regards her husband. “Arthur, how could you?”

Arthur doesn't answer in the quiet that follows. Under Lancelot's steady glare, Morgan crawls toward her brother, her lip quivering.

But those who have seen the curse of Lyonesse are surely not ones to toy with. Guinevere storms toward the unwanted guest, seizing her husband's
fusionah
and aiming it at Morgan. Her thumb is quick to force back the hammer, but Arthur halts the queen before her claws can come out.

“She is not welcome here!” she screams as Arthur reclaims his firelance.

Morgan doesn't dare meet Guinevere's eyes; the alleged witch grovels with a servant's humility. Her voice is shaken, but still elegantly melodic. “I am innocent, your majesty! I was framed—”

“No! Twenty years overdue the justice you never got!”

Lord William seizes the violent queen from Arthur's arms. Guinevere swallows gulps of air. I'm at her side in an instant. Morgan is submissive now, but I'd feel better with my crossbow in hand and hope my narrowed eyes reveal as much.

“Arthur,” my father says without as much as a glance at Morgan. “There will be war. And Camelot's subjects … this could cost you your crown.”

Arthur sits his sister at the table. “You're weak. Eat. Drink.”

It's unnerving how Morgan resembles Arthur in shape of angular face, in purposeful speech. When her brother pushes a cup of tea in front of her, thirsty lips inhale it. She reaches for a red apple amongst a plate of fruit and pricks it with the point of a silver knife, slicing through its core. Dark-circled eyes catch a glimpse of those who would be by the window, where only Marcus stands. With darkened lips and ears full of jewels, from the lobes all the way up the cartilage, Morgan might as well be the female ghost of a Camelot knight.

“Before we return to the quest,” Arthur says, “we will clear Morgan's name. I will not have it on my hands that innocent blood—blood Morgan and I share—was spilled when we had the power to change that. We will meet with neighboring kingdoms to remove the tarnish. Her connection to the Pendragon name, and therefore Camelot, depends on it.”

The demonic eyes of black-armored men flash in front of me. I see the jumbled images whenever I blink. Was I their only witness? I press my fingers against my temples.

Even if Arthur is desperate for family, even if it is Morgan, deep down he must know how wrong this all is.

Is there nothing I could possibly say?

“I faced charges of magic, Arthur,” Guinevere says. “I faced hell and noose, and perhaps they were the same. Someone of mercy would have let me die.”

“No—” Morgan reaches for Guinevere's hand. “Your father, all of Lyonesse, you were mistaken. Claims I was responsible followed me wherever I went. I was cast from kingdoms, tortured in dungeons equipped with the mechanical arts until I craved death. Those lies—”

“They weren't lies!” Guinevere screams. She wrenches her fingers free. Her words bounce off the colorless bricks and gas lanterns of tapestry-dressed walls.

A slam of hard wood breaks the tension. My eyes dart to the door. Through it storms Merlin, cane in hand, cape trailing behind him. He regards Morgan.

“Merlin, you were not summoned,” Lord Henry says with impatience. “This does not concern you.”

Merlin strides past Arthur's advisor without acknowledgement.

“Morgan le Fay, back in Camelot,” he says as Morgan gets to her feet and clambers around the table. Merlin follows, forcing her to Arthur's side as the rest of the assembly steps back.

I sigh in relief. Certainly Merlin will set things straight.

“You clearly forgot nothing goes unnoticed here. Especially an enemy trying to sneak in under an old wizard's nose.”

Arthur narrows his eyes. “Stop this, Merlin—”

But Merlin ignores the king. “How did you do it? What ports did you land at? What aeroships did you bribe? What magic did you steal to get yourself here? Was it all for Camelot? Excalibur? To observe the knights' quest or claim coordinates to a place you have no right to find?” His cane advances his walk toward her, but she keeps the long table between them.

“Or perhaps you're here for me, Morgan?” The sorcerer pauses to let Morgan state her intentions.

And she's quick to do so. “I needed the sanctuary of Camelot!”

The sorcerer is unaffected. “Word has passed through the Holy Land about you. Horrific tales of the sorcery you've mastered, torture you've inflicted. Tales that would have made the most powerful witches of Lyonesse tremble with fear.”

Morgan's eyes flash. “It isn't true.”

“Don't lie, Morgan,” Merlin whispers as though scolding a child. “With how advanced you must be after twenty years of thievery, you can certainly show a former sorcerer the respect he deserves.”

Arthur takes a step. “No, Merlin. You didn't see her arrive, alone and—”

“No. There were others.” My hand flies to cover my mouth.

The room goes silent. My heart falls still, like I'm Caldor and my
jaseemat
has run out. I look at the faces that have all turned to me, Morgan's the first. Silvery eyes blink, brows knit, lips frown. Then those lips curl into a quiet snarl, and the rest of the room disappears, rendering her ghostlike frame the only thing I see. Letting her know and study and memorize my face.

Memorize me.