Lancelot (2 page)

“Think nothing of it,” Elaine said with a charity she was far from feeling as they walked together toward the door. “Belike he has a sore head this morning.”

“Aye, I’m sure he does. But if you ask me,” Alienor murmured, glancing over to her stepmother, “’twas Millicent who started it.”

“Well, you’re free of her now,” Elaine said. “I hope you will be happy.”

They both turned to look at Alienor’s husband, Lord Cerdic, who stood between his parents. A slender young man with a wealth of golden curls, Cerdic was keenly aware of his beauty. At the moment he was entirely absorbed in adjusting the curling feather in his cap.

“Thank you,” Alienor said, “I’m sure I will be.” Their eyes met, and in the same moment they looked away. There was no more to be said; the deed was done, and Alienor had no choice but make the best of it. “Please remember me to—to your family,” she added, her voice breaking as she caught Elaine in a fierce embrace before hurrying away.

Elaine’s farewells to her aunt and uncle were far less cordial.

“I am sorry you have been inconvenienced by any of Corbenic’s people,” Elaine said coolly, drawing on her gloves. “I assure you it will not happen again. You can send the man home with me, and he will be suitably punished.”

“Oh, he has already been punished,” Ulfric replied.

Elaine stiffened. “Indeed?”

“I hanged him three days ago.”

“You hanged one of my father’s men?” Elaine demanded, so shocked by this breach of courtesy that she could scarce believe she’d heard aright.

Ulfric’s teeth showed in something that was meant to be a smile. “I did consult him first, of course—at least I tried. I wrote to him twice, but he did not deign to answer. You can tell him from me that he’ll be needing a new fletcher.”

“Fletcher? You mean—are you telling me you hanged Bran Fletcher?” Elaine gripped her hands together hard, lest she give in to the impulse to slap the smile from her uncle’s face.

“I hanged a thief.” Ulfric’s small eyes narrowed. “I know what a busy man your father is. It was my pleasure to do him this small service.”

Before Elaine could think of a suitable reply, her aunt leaned forward in a wave of heavy scent to kiss the air beside her cheek. “Farewell, my dear. Godspeed on your journey.
Do
give my love to your father and your brothers.”

Elaine left without another word. Bran Fletcher was but a face to her; she doubted she had ever spoken to the man. Yet still she felt bereft, and angry, too, both at Ulfric and herself, that anyone belonging to Corbenic should have met with such a fate.

There is nothing to be done about it now,
she told herself as she mounted and rode out of the courtyard. And at
least she had the chain. It should fetch enough to buy a new ram—theirs was on his last legs—and with luck an ewe or two, as well, to supplement their dwindling flock.

She was halfway home before she remembered something else Ulfric had said, that he had complained of her father to the king. Not for the first time, either. And Ulfric, unlike Father, had the means to send a dozen knights and fifty men-at-arms to Camelot whenever the king had need of them.

It meant nothing, she told herself. King Arthur was far too busy to concern himself with the quarrels of two country nobles.

But still she clapped heels to her mare, urging the ancient beast into a reluctant, jogging trot, fearing she had been far too long from home.

L
ATER, when Lancelot had regained some measure of control, he realized that the silence could not have lasted longer than a minute. At the time it seemed an age crawled by after Guinevere stopped talking and the three of them stood, frozen like figures in some vile tapestry, waiting for Arthur to reply.

The worst of it—if one element of the horror could be seized upon and called the worst—was that it had been such a
stupid
lie, tossed off by the queen as though she were remarking on the weather. Looking at Arthur’s face, Lancelot knew the king felt exactly as he did himself, as though he had been dealt a solid blow between the eyes. What possible response could one make when confronted with such a blatant disregard for anything resembling the truth?

Whatever it might be, Lancelot could not be the one to make it. That was Arthur’s duty—and his right. Mild as he seemed, Arthur was very much a man, and any man, so
grievously provoked, was capable of violence. Lancelot waited, not daring to draw breath, for the royal fury to erupt.

And then, at last, King Arthur spoke.

“That’s that, then, isn’t it?” he said, turning to gaze out the window. “If you are in pain, Lance, you must stay behind.”

Lancelot’s mortification, which he had thought complete, increased a hundredfold. He had never been better; he had said as much when he and Arthur dined together just last night. He drew a long breath and looked past the king’s broad shoulders out the window, where the garden wavered behind thick panes of glass.

“Sire,” he said carefully, “truly there is no need. ’Tis a trifling thing—”

“No!” Guinevere shot Lancelot a pleading look behind her husband’s back. “You mustn’t risk yourself.”

A shift in focus showed him Arthur’s face reflected in the glass—just as he and Guinevere were reflected for the king to see. Lancelot’s hands clenched into fists.

“My lord,” he began, with no clear idea of what he could say next. To go on insisting he was well was tantamount to calling Guinevere a liar, which would be not only redundant at this point, but unthinkable, for he was bound by oath to serve her. Yet even the most tacit acceptance of her lie was a betrayal of his oath to Arthur. Before he could resolve this conundrum, the king spoke over him.

“Guinevere is right.” Arthur turned and added with a smile that did not reach his eyes, “’Twould be folly to hazard my best warrior for the sake of a day’s entertainment.”

“Just so, sire,” Guinevere agreed.

Lancelot stared from the queen to the king, uncomprehending. False, it was all false, the words they spoke, the smiles they exchanged. After his solitary years in Avalon, Lancelot was often confused by the subtleties of human
relationships, but he knew the dark emotions swirling between the king and queen spelled danger to them all. His head began to ache as he searched vainly for the words to make things right.

“Sire, I—”

“Stay,” the king ordered curtly.

“Stay,” echoed the queen.

Two people living had the right to command Sir Lancelot du Lac, First Knight of Arthur’s realm and the Queen’s Champion. When they spoke as one, he had no choice but to obey.

“I am, of course, your servant,” he said unwillingly.

Arthur did not acknowledge his acquiescence or even seem to notice it. “Farewell, Guinevere,” the king said, his gaze still riveted upon his wife. The queen raised her face to accept her husband’s kiss, and Arthur brushed his lips across her cheek in a perfunctory farewell. “And to you, Sir Lancelot,” he added coolly. “I hope to find you both in better health when I return.”

The king’s eyes burned into Lancelot’s for one fleeting moment before Arthur turned and walked away.

Wait,
Lancelot wanted to cry out,
stop
—but he could not force himself to make a sound. Like a man enspelled to silence, he watched the king vanish into the corridor. Only the slam of the door snapped the enchantment.

“Guinevere—”

“Wait.”

The queen moved as silently as a cat, the furred hem of her sapphire chamber robe trailing behind her. She opened the door a crack, peered out, then eased it shut again. Turning, she leaned her back against the wood and met Lancelot’s gaze. Her face was pale as whey, save for the dark patches like bruises beneath her eyes. Unlike Lancelot, she had been genuinely ill, but whatever pity he had felt for her was
swept away by the rising tide of anger that shook him where he stood.

“You know you will forgive me in time,” she said, “so why not save us the bother of a quarrel and do it now? Sit down—I’ll have something sent up from the kitchens and we can—”

“You fool!” The sound of his own voice was strange to him, harsh and trembling with rage. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Guinevere paced to the window and threw the casement open, breathing deeply of the cool, fresh air before replying. “Very well, Lance, have your little temper if you must. But you’re being quite ridiculous, you know. You’ve often told me you dislike jousting, and Arthur was quite willing for you to stay, so—”

He crossed the distance between them in three paces and seized her by the shoulders, so abruptly that she cried out in surprise. “Do you not know what is being said? Dinadan and Agravaine—”

Beneath his palms, her slight shoulders moved in a shrug. “The two of them are like old women, forever gossiping in corners. Nobody credits anything they say.”

Guinevere was no coward. She met his gaze straight on; only the pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat betrayed her fear. And she was right to be afraid. This was no “little temper,” but the sort of blinding rage Lancelot had experienced only on a battlefield.

“Arthur believes this,” he said, his fingers digging into her flesh. “How do you think it looks for him to walk into your chamber and find us here alone? And when you came out with your lie—my God, his face! Did you not see it for yourself? Are you blind? Witless?”

Two spots of brilliant color stained her ashen cheeks. “Unhand me at once! How dare you speak to me like this!”

“I dare because I must! I should have done it long before, but I assumed you knew.”

Her pale lips twisted in a mocking smile. “Knew
what
? That fools whisper idle tales about their betters? So what if they do?”

“Think you Arthur has not heard these whispers?” Lancelot shook her hard, his voice rising to a shout. “He has, I know he has, I’ve seen the way he watches us!”

“You are wrong—mistaken—”

“I am not. I know him, none better—he is no fool, he suspected long before today.”

“But even so, he would not believe—”

“He does not
want
to. But now, now that you have openly connived to keep me by your side when he is gone away—what else
can
he think?”

At last he’d reached her. The queen’s eyes, so oft compared to woodland violets, widened in terrified comprehension. “Then you must go, right now, this moment,” she cried, pressing her soft palms against his chest.

“How can I? My old wound is troubling me,” he said in savage mimickry. “I can barely walk. The king himself ordered me to stay behind. And if you think this won’t cause more talk—”

“Wait.” Guinevere jerked free and put her hands to her temples, pushing aside the thick waves of raven hair that curled loosely past her hips. “Just wait, let me think.” After a moment, her head snapped up. “Do you remember that evening last month when the three of us dined here?”

“What?”

“We had the brace of partridge—Arthur took them with his falcon—”

“Are you raving?”

“Listen! Arthur said it was hardly fair for you to joust these days, do you remember? He said your opponents are
so frightened by your reputation that they are incapable of giving you a proper match.”

“Yes, but—”

“You
will
ride in the tournament, Lance, but in disguise. Then you can tell Arthur it was a test—a test of honor—that you wanted to see if you could win without anyone knowing who you are. He will like that, he’ll think it a good jest.”

Lancelot stared at her, half admiring and wholly appalled at this new proof of her nimble mind.

“Another lie—”

“Oh, no, but it isn’t! Arthur
did
say that, I heard him, and you
were
a bit insulted, were you not?”

How well she knew them both. Arthur would believe it, not only because it was the sort of trick he himself would play, but because he wanted—was quite desperate—to accept any alternative to the rumors spreading like poison through the court.

“This is wrong,” Lancelot said. “Please, Guinevere, I beg you, let me tell him—”

“No! Do not start all that again! You will tell him naught save what I have said. You
promised
—and I need—”

“I! I! Is that all you ever think about? What of Arthur? What of me? Are you too stupid to understand what you are doing to us both? Or are you too selfish to care?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “How can you say such things to me?”

Lancelot slumped down on the window seat and leaned his throbbing brow against the glass. “Oh, God,” he whispered, “what am I to do?”

“I have already told you! If you would only
listen
—”

Wearily, he rose to his feet, rubbing the aching space between his eyes. “I cannot,” he said, despairing, “the king has ordered me to stay.”

Her brows rushed together in a frown. “And
I
say that you shall go.”

He knew that look. Quickly he started toward her, one hand extended. “It is impossible. Surely you understand that I cannot disobey a direct order from my lord. We’ll find another way—”

It was too late. All at once the queen of Britain stood before him, gesturing with imperious dignity toward the door. “Don your armor, hide your face, and do not speak your name until the tournament is done.”