Camelot's Blood (34 page)

She was herself again. Her head spun. Her lungs heaved. She was in the chapel at Din Eityn, sprawled ridiculously on the floor. Pain blossomed at the back of her head.

Agravain, swollen in rage, stood over her.

Agravain had seized her and thrown her away from the bier, against the wall, so that she fell in this ridiculous, crumpled heap.

Why are you here?
She could not speak. She did not have enough breath in her.

“I ask again,” Agravain said through his clenched teeth. “What were you doing?”

Her husband threw her across the room, shattered her working, sent Lot back to death, left nothing but the corpse and no answer. The corpse with its eyes sunken shut once more.

Never spoke. Never left. Never died. Not really
.

Anger surged through her and brought her to her feet again.
You surely have not forgotten the part you hoped I would take in this war?

“I have, my lord, done neither more nor less than I was bid.” Laurel instantly regretted the words. She must reason now, not accuse. What he saw … what she had done, was difficult to comprehend, especially when his feelings were still so raw.

Agravain seemed stunned by how straight she stood and how calmly she answered him. He walked past her to the bier. His hands shook as he reached out and clumsily, but carefully, attempted to replace the shroud. Without thinking, Laurel moved to help him.

“Stay back,” he snarled.

Laurel froze. The pain at the back of her skull throbbed sharply.

As gently as he could, Agravain smoothed down the fine linen. There was no mistaking it, however, the shroud had been disturbed. The king, his father, had been disturbed, disordered, desecrated. He stood there, leaning over the bunched and wrinkled shroud, his breathing so loud and so harsh, Laurel's own breath caught in her throat in sympathy.

“Fifteen years, he dwelt in madness and torment. For ten years he held his ground alone in hell so that his sons might live. He sacrificed all he was, all he had, hoping only that he might have some peace in the end, that at the last God's mercy would not be denied him.”

Agravain turned slowly, and Laurel's heart constricted hard to see the naked fury in his face. “And you dragged him
back
! You forced him to serve your need. You confounded the will of God, and you denied him the only peace he could know!”

“My lord …” Laurel faltered.

Agravain was closed, shuttered not behind the old, bitter mistrustful walls of his self. He had gone still further, behind a wall of anger and hard righteousness.

“There was knowledge that only he had,” said Laurel, forcing herself to speak. “Things he could tell about Morgaine that no one else could. It was the only way I could aid your victory.”

“There is no victory from such knowledge!” Agravain's voice was level, and utterly certain. “There is only damnation and death and confusion. How could you do this?”

In the face of that furious, plaintive question Laurel had no choice but to hold her ground. “You said you trusted me.”

“Yes, yes, I trusted you.” Agravain ran his hand through his hair. “God forgive me.”

“Then trust me now.” Laurel took one step forward. “Let me have but a little time …”

He looked at her again, and the blood ran from Laurel's heart. His face was not merely stern, but contemptuous.

“Time, my lady?” He inquired, the sneer in his voice making a mockery of the polite words. “Time for what? To torment my father's soul further? Do you next wish to quiz my sister's bones with your ceaseless riddles? Or just my mother's? Is it your father's head you carry in those great trunks you have guarded so jealously? Perhaps I do not suit you alive as I am, and you need time to take my head, to make use of what wisdom death can bring such a fool.”

“Agravain, this is beneath you.”

“You, you witch, you necromancer, you have the
gall
to lecture me on right conduct!” His fists knotted and she remembered the raw strength of his lean arms. For a moment, Laurel was purely, physically afraid. If he struck her … if he beat her … if he killed her …

But he only stood there for a moment, anger drawing his face tight and sharp, his eyes as shining and hard as amber. Then, resolved, he whirled around and flung wide the chapel doors.

Outside, the harried activity of the courtyard seemed almost comic compared to what was happening within the chapel's walls.

“You! You!” Agravain shouted at two men in leather corselets.

They halted their conversation at once and came forward to kneel in front of him.

What are you doing? What do you mean by this?

“You will take Her Majesty to the gates,” said Agravain. “And you will throw her out.”

They stared. Laurel stared, unable to comprehend what she heard.

One of the two soldiers, the younger and bolder of the pair licked his lips. “But, Sire …”

“You will do as you are commanded or you will bear the whip for your insubordination.”

The soldiers bowed their heads, and rose.

“Will you come out, Majesty?” asked the one who had spoken before. He was very young, scarcely more than a youth, for all his gangly height. “We cannot bring arms into the holy place.”

Laurel looked to Agravain. He met her gaze without hesitation, without change of his stance or expression.

“Agravain …” she began again. She must try. She must explain. He had to hear her.

“Go with them, or I will drag you from here myself.”

His shuttered eyes had sunken deep into the recesses of his skull, turning them black. The bones of his face pressed hard against his skin. The people outside, coming and going, had stopped, and turned to stare. At her, at him.

She could make a scene. She could shout and scream and throw herself to the floor. She could lay her hands on the altar and claim sanctuary.

But there was no protest she could make, no word or movement that would reach him and crack open those walls. She would only serve to make herself ridiculous, and that she would not do.

Laurel's hands shook. Her blood had turned to ice. Good. She needed the strength of ice to prevent her bones and sinews from collapsing under her. Her feet still seemed able to move, and they directed themselves to the chapel door without her intervention. This too was just as well, for she needed all her concentration to keep her gaze pointed ahead of her. She could not turn and look at Agravain. She did not want to see the burning hatred leveled at her.

Go with them or I will drag you from here myself
.

She walked down the chapel steps to stand between the soldiers. She saw people, men, women, soldiers, workmen, saw their mouths moving, but could hear nothing. They should have knelt. She was the queen. Their queen. For all of two days. But no one moved to bend their knee, or to doff their hood. They stared. She had not stopped walking, flanked by these two soldiers like two of the great shaggy hounds so beloved by these people.

In the midst of the whole staring crowd, one face was clear. Back in the shadows, beneath the wall, watching intently, black eyes glittering, Laurel saw Byrd.

Black gaze. Round black eyes, bright and shining, red-rimmed with age and weariness, but bright and steady. They watched her without blinking, tracking her slow, numb progress.

Throw her out … Where am I going?
Din Eityn's first gate opened before her. The men surrounding it stared. Men on ladders ceased their hammering and stared down; confused and dirt-smeared angels watching over her as she passed through this earthly gate into the second circle. This place was packed with sweating, shouting men toiling at the earthen berms, laboring at the strange engines Agravain had caused to be made. She walked patiently between her escorts, waiting for this last gate to be opened. It was a little portal to the side of the great one. It opened, and Laurel walked through into the surprisingly green and sunny hell beyond.

She heard the solid sound of wood slamming against stone, and the sliding of the bar into place. The wind brushed her cheek, a mother's sympathetic touch. There were more people before her. They popped up among the rocks and on the sloping hillsides to see who had come down to join them. She could have lifted her head to speak to any of them, requested anything as they stared, their tools loose in their hands, their eyes too large in their heads.

But she could not speak. She had been struck dumb and cast out. The path that had been opened for her descended further, and her feet followed it without interference. She stumbled here and there, but she did not fall. There were voices, there was movement. She could not understand any of it. It was as if there were only three words left in the world.

Throw her out
.

He had done so, and it was a very long way down.

• • •

Agravain stood on the chapel's steps and watched Laurel, under guard, walk away. She did not turn around. She would not. She would not turn and look at him with a plea in her eyes. She would not turn to argue, or beg.

She would not turn.

All the while he heard the voice of his father's corpse, the harsh, flat whisper of cold and fear that was like no living voice. The pain was there. The pain beyond description that he had heard before, in Merlin's shadowed hut as the grisly oracles had spoken to him.

Laurel walked through the first gate. She stood for a moment in the shadows, swaying, before she found her stride again, and walked beneath the walls. The men on duty swung the great gates shut behind her. The sound of them reverberated through the yard.

Silently the workmen began to move again, picking up their bundles, or continuing their tasks. Slowly, in a strangely muted way, hammers once again began to strike wood and metal. The oxen snorted and strained as their drivers touched them up.

Mordred's army, Morgaine's army, was a day away at best. A day away, and they were far from ready. That was the only thing that could be important right now. The red tide that clouded his vision must be made to recede.

Laurel had betrayed him. She had committed blasphemy. She was gone. That must be an end to it.

He must leave these steps, walk out into the yard. He take up his duties once again. Now. He must go now.

A movement, nearer and smaller than all the others, caught at the corner of his eye, dragging his vision around. There at his right hand stood little Byrd.

He had been in the shadow of Tania's wall when she had come to him, conferring with Devi as the winch on the great trebuchet was wound. They needed time to aim the machines. Men were already down in the valley, setting up the first of the target flags, but would they be ready in time? Their runners reported the enemy was making good time through the low hills, driving themselves hard. But the Pictish men could run for days and be as fresh as when they'd begun …

“Majesty!” Byrd cried, breathless from her shambling run, her eyes wide with fear. “Majesty! You must come at once. The queen … in the chapel … the queen …”

Thinking some ill had befallen Laurel, he had gone at a run, to throw open the door, and see her necromancy.

Byrd, the bearer of this foul news, stood before him once again. He had not seen her approach, and he should have. But he could not see anything. The sight of Laurel walking away blocked out too much of the world around him.

Byrd's hands fidgeted with her filthy apron. “I'm sorry, Your Majesty.”

Agravain stared at her, mute. His own hand itched. He wanted to raise it, to strike her, to beat her bloody for bringing him word as she had. For showing him that Laurel was not as he had believed her to be; as he had trusted her to be.

What the ancient dame saw in his face, Agravain did not know, but she had wit to make her obeisance and flee down the steps into the sea of activity that filled the yard.

I must move. I must get back to work
.

Carefully, methodically, he shut the sight of Laurel's stricken face as she pushed herself away from the wall away, along with every word of love he had ever spoken to her. It was over and done, as dead as if it had dropped from the cliffs. He had been a fool and he had paid for it.

Oh, he had paid the bitterest price of all.

Agravain strode down the steps. He needed to speak with Devi, and with Cador. They had to begin the aiming while there was light to see by …

A grey-headed figure strode through the yard's hive of activity.

Pedair. Agravain cursed inwardly as he turned towards the old chieftain. Pedair's face was contorted by anger and confusion, and the effort it took to smooth them away as he planted himself foursquare in front of Agravain. “What have you done?”

I grabbed my wife by her arms, just like Gawain did. She flew so lightly away. She drew herself up so proudly as I confronted her with her crimes
.

“I ask you again, Majesty, what have you done!”

“Less than I should,” Agravain answered, noting that Pedair did not kneel.

Pedair strangled on his own words, forcing them out with difficulty. “They say you have expelled the queen, without hearing her.”

“This is not your business, Pedair,” Agravain answered curtly.
I will permit this questioning just once, my lord
. “We have no more time to waste.”

He pushed past Pedair, who stood stock still in his path. “It's happened already,” the old man murmured. “God help us all.”

Agravain stopped in mid-stride, and slowly he turned around. “I do not understand you.”

“No, my king?” Pedair drew up his slumping shoulders. “I will be more plain. You have not been returned for seven days, and you have already expelled your wife from this place.” He stabbed his finger toward the gates. “Your wife, our queen, who had eyes that might have seen the workings of our greatest enemy and the power that might have worked against her.” Pedair's own eyes gleamed with the kind of desperation that could overcome men in battle when they saw death waiting for them on the top of the next hill. “I had hoped you would be able to put up more of a fight than your father.”