Camelot's Blood (32 page)

When the last man had made his respects to the corpse, and made his stony inspection of Agravain, Jen and Cait covered the body again. Ruadh would stand guard here, with the hymn singer and the drummer, watching over his king in death as he had in life. Byrd gestured urgently to Cait, who took up the crown beneath its loose wrappings, and then took her place with Jen and Squire Devi in front of Laurel and Agravain so that they might not walk unescorted into their own hall.

Out in the yard, the work went on unabated. By the time they reached the bottom of the chapel steps, the smith's ringing hammers drowned out the mourning drum. The shouts of the men assembling the strange engines of war, the whickering of the horses and the lowing of the oxen overrode the lonely hymn.

It was wrong. The whole of Din Eityn should have stopped, not for a moment, but for days, to make solemn notice of Lot's passing, and then to allow Agravain to ascend the throne with all due honor and homage. Messengers should have been sent to the approaching enemy, asking for time so that all ceremonies could be properly observed. It could not be done. She knew that. But she still wished for it, and could not silence that wish. The right order of things was violated by this unseemly haste.

And Laurel knew after looking in all those weary, earthen eyes, she was not the only one who felt this way.

Laurel and Agravain and their company reached the great hall, and the crowd parted slowly for them, making an aisle for their small procession. Laurel kept her gaze focused on Pedair's back. Let them stare.

There was no dais in the hall. There was only a chair, carved from oak that had gone dark with age. Generations of use had worn its arms smooth and had polished the carvings of ribbons, wolves, cattle and warriors until they shone like silk.

Across the chair's arms lay a spear. Its tip was white bone, and its shaft carved with more signs and sigils than Laurel could read. The kings of Gododdin wore no crowns, Agravain had told her. This spear was the true sigil of kingship in this place.

But Agravain did not take it up. That was Pedair's place in this ceremony. Agravain stood behind Pedair, while Laurel stationed herself at his right hand with Cait and Jen behind her.

Pedair lifted the spear reverently, and raised it high over his head, turning so that all could see. The men of Gododdin closed their ranks, watching in silence.

“Here stands Agravain
mach
Lot
mach
Lulach!” cried Pedair, his old man's voice sounding thin in the cavernous hall. “If any man is not satisfied he is a whole man of true lineage, let him speak!”

A rustling of wool. A cough. The sound of heavy breathing, and in the distance the tinny ring of the hammers heard through wood and stone, but no word was raised.

“Here stands Agravain
mach
Lot
mach
Lulach. If any man is not satisfied as to his right to bear the name of his fathers, let him speak!”

Three score pairs of eyes watched them. Hard eyes that had seen the ravages of war and nature, and all the hardships that could be visited on a people. Men who starved and fought in the winter and feasted in the summer, who knew flood and illness, sun and joy, and had not broken. They looked at Agravain, weighing and measuring his lean form and his unflinching expression. They measured him against themselves, and against their fathers and their heroes. They measured him also against Agravain's own father, who, for all they knew, had broken down and fallen into the depths.

“Here stands Agravain
mach
Lot
mach
Lulach. If any man is not satisfied as to his right to claim the seat and the spear of his fathers, let him speak!”

Laurel could not breathe. Her lungs seized tight within her. Her blood had turned sluggish in her veins, and her heart beat as heavy as the funeral drum. The moment stretched out. Surely it had already been long enough. It must end, but it did not end, and they all stared at Agravain like the stranger he was, and the hammers rang in the courtyard, reminding them all he had moved with too much haste.

But no word was raised. Pedair, turned and knelt down before Agravain, holding out the spear of kings. Agravain wrapped his long hand around it and lifted it, holding it high. There was no roar of approval, but there rose from the men of Gododdin a bass rumble; a recognition that what happened here was right and just. Laurel found she could breathe again.

Pedair bowed his head, and placed his hand over his heart.

“My king,” he said. “I beg the right to be the first to swear my fealty to you. My soul and self are yours, to do with as you see fit.”

For the first time, Agravain's cool expression flickered. His eyes brightened the smallest amount.

“Rise up, Pedair who has served so faithfully.” Laurel doubted any but she and Pedair heard the tremor in his voice. “Take your place at my side, as you stood at my father's.”

Pedair did as he was bid, and again, the bass rumble of approval lifted from the gathering. This too was as it should be.

A man stepped out of the gathering. He was like an elm tree, tall and gnarled by weather and time. His moustaches hung down to his chest. His brown eyes were keen, and his hard face showed his relief clearly, as he too knelt at Agravain's feet, laying his right hand over his heart in salute, and his left upon the spear.

“My king. I am Kolad
mach
Kade. I speak here for the men of the Red Stone, and I do swear my fealty to you. My soul and self, and all that I hold are yours to do with as you see fit.”

Agravain nodded. “The men of the Red Stone are well known for their courage and their honor. Rise up, Kolad
mach
Kade, and be welcome.”

With Kolad's oath, the dam broke, and the others came forward. Some chiefs came alone. Others stood with their sons or brothers at their sides. All swore fealty; hand upon heart, hand upon the spear of kings. They spoke warmly, and hope shone in their eyes more strongly as they saw their oaths acknowledged by this man who bore himself with so much pride. Laurel's heart swelled with her own pride, and her own relief.

Then, up stepped a young man alone. He looked to be Agravain's match for years. His face was tight, controlling some deeply felt emotion. His beard and moustaches were sparse, but his auburn hair was long, and he wore it in two braids down his back. His eyes were green as the sky during the sea's worst storms. He knelt as the others had, and laid his right hand over his heart, but when he stretched his left hand out to the spear, he hesitated.

“No,” he said, and he stood, backing away. “No. I will not swear fealty here.”

“The time for debate is over, Bryce
mach
Deuchan!” cried Pedair, stepping forward. “If you had doubts as to His Majesty's claim, you should have spoken at the right time!”

“I have no doubts as to the claim made here,” replied the man, Bryce, calmly. “I am certain that here stands the son of King Lot, and that he is a whole man and that the right of inheritance is his.” He looked at Agravain as he spoke. He did not blink or falter. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The hall had gone absolutely silent. Even the distant ringing of hammers had fallen away.

“But I ask you, men of Gododdin, what will be gained by placing the son of such a father over us all? This is Arthur's man, and Lot's son. The one has ignored our straits, the other languished for years in madness and waste while we were left to make our own way, without protection, without judgment or intervention.” Until then, he had spoken to Agravain and Pedair. Now, he swung around and addressed Gododdin's men. “I say the rights of these kings are forfeit, for they did not hear the pleas and petitions of those over whom the right had been given. I say we owe them no oath and no allegiance. I say that had they desired such from us, they should have come before and restored the peace and justice that was theirs to give and hold!”

Laurel's breath caught in her throat, and it seemed as if the stones shifted beneath her. But Agravain was not moved. He had been expecting something like this, she realized, and unlike her, he had not let his guard down. Like the warrior he was, he had held himself ready until his opponent had shown himself.

“I hear your rebuke, Bryce
mach
Deuchan,” Agravain answered coldly. “It is well spoken, and it is not without worth. But I ask you this: where were these pleas and petitions?”

This took Bryce aback, and for a moment, Laurel thought he might laugh out loud. “The men of Gododdin for ten years have lifted their voices.”

Agravain raised his brows. “Have they?” he asked in mock surprise. “For those ten years I and my brothers have been at Camelot. There was not a chieftain in all these lands who did not know that. We went there obedient to the command of our father, and not once in those ten years has a man of Gododdin come to any of us.

“If you wished to speak of right, of justice, why have you waited so long, Bryce? Why wait for the moment when Lot is dead and the spear passes to an unknown hand? Why wait for the time of greatest weakness to make your fine speech about the rights of the ruler and the ruled?”

Murmurs of approval rippled from the assembled men, and a lone chuckle from near the back. Bryce folded his arms. “I came to witness the actions of a king, not to hear a scholar mincing words.” But this sounded petulant, childish, and his words only glanced off Agravain.

“Then you shall witness the actions of a king,” Agravain answered calmly. “And so shall all men here.”

“Gododdin, an army is coming. It is on the move, now. You all know this, and you came here in part to learn what would be done in the face of it. You looked to find a gathering of soldiers and knights. Instead you have seen strange engines being built in the yard, and strangers' hands at work upon them, broken men, half men, ancient men. You have smelled sulpher as well as the honest scents of the forge. And you wonder if what you do is right.

“Let me tell you what I know of this army. It outnumbers us five to one, at the very least. Its ranks include the Dal Riata and the Picts, and they do not mean to leave a man among us standing. We cannot take our lesson from the bear or the boar and stand to face our foe sure of our strength. But we can take our lesson from the hawk, which hovers silently, waiting for the moment its prey relaxes to strike, and from the wolf which stalks and watches and waits until it is ready to attack.

“The engines my men build are strange to our eyes, but would not have been to our grandfathers'. It was such engines that allowed the Romans to take this rock from our fathers.”

This raised a mutter of unease from the assembly. Agravain did not give it time to grow.

“The Romans took this place,” he went on. “But they could not hold it, because it was not theirs. God would not permit their hold over this place of ours. Now, once again, an invader comes. They come from the west, and deceit is in their vanguard. They think to play upon our pride and tempt us into a fight we cannot win.

“But we will not be fooled. We will not fight with strong arms alone. We will fight with the cunning our grandfathers bequeathed us, using the lessons from the history of our people. We will take the tools from those old thieves and turn them against the new, and we will hold, for this place is ours, by right, by blood and by the unbending will of God.”

This was what Arthur could not match; the soul-deep pride of place; the understanding that this single stretch of stone was like no other. It was here that the blood and bone, story and history of all the generations lay. That was the cord of sympathy that bound Agravain tightly to these men.

Arthur had severed that tie in himself to become an emperor, and Gawain had done the same. But not Agravain. Nowhere and nothing was more important to him than this one place.

Bryce did not move. He stood, turned half towards Agravain, half towards the men of Gododdin, who watched him now, waiting to see how he would respond.

Bryce nodded once. “Well spoken, King Agravain,” he acknowledged. “But it is only one way. If we fight this war, the loss to all standing here will be great. It will be greatest to those who have given their oath, for with your defeat they lose their honor with their blood.”

Bryce smiled, sharp and grim. “But why should we make war at all?” He spread his arms wide, making the words ring against the stones. “Why should we not treat with those who come this way? The word of the men of the north and west is as sound as that of Arthur and of Lot. Their kinship with us is as close, if not closer, than that of the men from further south, and their power is as fair. Their quarrel is not truly with us, but with Arthur. Why should we not let them pass us by and leave our fields our cattle and our people unmolested?”

No one moved to answer the question, not one voice lifted itself in either agreement or dissent. But Bryce was not prepared to wait until someone did make an answer. His needle-sharp gaze flickered to Laurel, and Laurel felt fear touch the back of her neck. She saw what he meant to say in the curl of his lips and the cold gleam in his eye.

“And why, should we permit another sorceress of the Dumonii to hold sway over our land and king?”

There it was. Spoken aloud in the great hall, and the stirring and the murmuring answered it. The tension in the air thickened. Many here wished to hear the answer to this question, and, surely, there were as many who expected a poor answer as hoped for a sound one.

Over the beating of her heart, Laurel heard Byrd suck in a sudden breath. “Her doing,” the old dame murmured. “Should have known.”

Agravain's cold anger brushed Laurel's skin, but she could not permit him to make this answer.

She stepped forward, unafraid, closer to the assembly, closer to Bryce, whose smile faded with each step of her approach.

“I am Laurel Carnbrea, the Lady of Cambryn,” said Laurel. “I am kindred to Queen Guinevere. It was at the request of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere that I came in marriage to King Agravain. It is beyond me to bring dishonor to this marriage, or to his person. If it is my presence that stands between the men of Gododdin and this fight, then I will remove it immediately.”