Chapter 7 #2
A familiar woman trotted down the stairs to join them, holding the skirts of her plain linen overdress in one hand. “I hope Mordred destroys him,” sniffed Elaine, a capable healer Nyneve had worked with a handful of times. Spotting her, Elaine gave a little wave, which she happily returned.
If Nyneve was honest, she almost hoped so, too.
Even though she deeply suspected Arthur’s bastard son of .
. . something. She wasn’t entirely sure what, but in the past two weeks, it’d become quite clear to her that a handful of people maintained the majority of influence at Camelot: Arthur, of course; Guinevere, in her sly and secret ways; Sir Lancelot du Lac, the King’s Champion; and, surprisingly, Mordred—the interloper destined to destroy it all.
She’d learned from Galen that Mordred had been treated quite poorly during his first few years in Camelot, but as a squire, his skills became undeniable, and as admiration for him grew among both citizens and the younger nobles, Arthur warmed to him as well.
Despite the distaste many older highborns still held for him, Mordred now sat on the war council and was widely considered to have the king’s ear, in addition to being close with the queen.
Close enough that some people whispered unsavory things—but Nyneve wasn’t interested in mindless gossip.
She wanted truth. And the truth was that the strange, beautiful knight was absolutely hiding something, but she thought it not an affair with the queen.
That seemed too banal for a thing like him.
And yet, she still relished the look on the middle-aged knight’s face as Mordred calmly stepped closer. The nobleman was tall, but Mordred even more so. Broader, too, and anyone with a lick of sense could see he moved with the kind of grace that meant he was deadly in combat.
“Sir Bellicus,” he greeted, his head canted as he examined the knight. “It has been many years. Welcome back to Camelot. I am sure Arthur looks forward to hearing from you at the feast this evening.”
Sir Bellicus nodded a few beats too late.
Something sour moved across his mouth, but before he could say more, stable boys led two horses onto the field.
The knights’ jousting mounts, Nyneve assumed.
Sir Bellicus’s horse was a fine-boned chestnut, its coat polished to a burnished bronze.
A good-looking horse, she thought, but nothing compared to Rook.
Mordred’s large destrier pranced in place, his long, wavy mane—much like his rider’s—plaited in a braid that ran along the thick arch of his neck.
Nyneve watched the knight settle his helm over his head and turn toward Rook without another word to Sir Bellicus.
He swung onto the charger’s back and headed toward the tilt.
The current match had ended in what was apparently an exciting victory, but Nyneve barely heard the shouts and cheers.
All of her attention settled on the knight in his black mail atop his black horse.
He looked like a thing of legend, just barely captured in ink and stone, more than he did a living creature.
“My lady.” A voice broke her attention, and she glanced down to find Sir Bellicus mounted on his horse, right beside the railing.
The knight’s eyes devoured her hungrily, slipping down to the curve of her bust and the fitted bodice of her gown.
Nyneve set her jaw. “Would you do me the honor of a token?”
She should just say yes. Pull an old handkerchief from her pockets, give it away, cause no trouble.
This brash, loud-mouthed knight would certainly spill his secrets easily.
He knew about the raiders at the coast—useful, possibly.
A few goblets of wine, a kiss or two in a shadowed alley, and he would give her everything, probably never realizing that he’d revealed anything at all.
But defiance—the very thing that had landed her here with an impossible task and her magic bound—burned beneath her breastbone.
She held the knight’s gaze for a long second, letting her mouth curl in the way she knew men did not like.
Then she took a step to the right, leaning over the railing as far as she could, and called out, “Sir Mordred!”
He turned immediately, too quick a response considering the din of the festival. She reached up and pulled her hair ribbon free, sending her auburn curls tumbling down around her shoulders. Then she held the ribbon over the railing, beckoning the knight closer.
Half of her was surprised when he sent Rook into a trot, the cue so subtle Nyneve didn’t catch it. At that lofty, powerful pace, the ebony destrier closed the distance quickly, sidling up to the stands.
“I do owe you a token, after all,” she murmured, too quiet for Sir Bellicus, who turned away in disgust, to hear. Satisfaction filled her as the other knight spurred his horse into a canter, leaving her and Mordred behind.
“Lady Nyneve,” Mordred replied in that deep, resonant tone that she felt all the way to her toes. “I daresay you seem to be enjoying the games.”
She knew a challenge when she heard one and held his gaze, unflinchingly.
He pulled his sword halfway out of its sheath and returned her glare, his fathomless eyes visible behind his helm.
She smiled, a sharp thing, and leaned forward to wrap her green ribbon around the pommel of his sword.
It brought her dangerously close—close enough to smell the heat of Rook’s flesh, the polished metal of Mordred’s sword, and a curl of woodsmoke.
She tied off the knot and leaned back, bracing herself on the railing, feeling strangely lightheaded.
“’Til we meet again, my lady,” Mordred threatened in a low, rough murmur that made her heartbeat slip into her belly. With a tip of his helm, he was gone, Rook launching into a ground-devouring canter toward the tilt field.
“Well done,” Molly said with a gruff nod. “Sir Mordred is one of the good ones. Thank you for sticking up for him. It’s Nyneve, right? Galen’s apprentice?”
She nodded as her mind spun, trying to reconcile the woman’s words with the dangerous exchange she’d just shared with Mordred. She flushed—which she told herself was only because of the heavy curtain of her curls that now rested on her neck and shoulders—and shrugged.
“He certainly seems,” she began, breathless for a reason she couldn’t place, “like he’s different from the rest of them.”
The kitchen maids chimed in agreement as Nyneve dug her fingernails into the wooden railing and tried with all her might not to believe what she’d just said.
But she still greedily drank in Mordred’s form as he lined Rook up with the tilt.
There seemed no clear place where the knight ended and the destrier began.
Unbidden, her mind leapt to a wild place—imagining herself entangled with him in such a way, so lost in each other that all delineations and identities fell away.