Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
A sort of numbness had descended over Gabriel during the past week of travel—a distance from his feelings that was welcome, compared to the usual maelstrom.
It was almost like a good mood. Life was bad, ho-hum, it would continue to be bad in perpetuity, but he’d get through it somehow, and there would probably be bright hours or days or perhaps even weeks, but if not, that was the hand you were dealt.
So what if he’d wrecked his one chance at love?
Lots of people never found love at all; at least he’d been briefly warmed by it before being cast out into the cold.
And who cared if he had no idea whether his reforms were for the best?
He had advisors to tell him that. He trusted Gwen, Lord Das, the Wizard, and even Sir Hurst to an extent.
He’d do whatever they told him to do. He was done with the burden, the fear, the guilt.
Perhaps they could build a bigger library at home, put a bed in there …
maybe he could leave Camelot and set up permanent residence at Tintagel, which was being slowly transformed into a place of study.
People would hate him, but they did already.
It didn’t seem to matter what he did; he was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.
His father had been right about one thing: Taking a strong stance was difficult and dangerous.
But then, his father had been interrupted in his careful, neutral balancing act by cold-blooded murder.
More proof that there was no way to do any of this right.
He walked into the small chamber in the Lady’s hut with much the same soothing detachment he’d felt on the road. It didn’t particularly matter what she said to him in this room. It was a calming space though, devoid of any fripperies, dark and single-minded. Not unlike a cupboard.
“You are a strange sort of king,” said the Lady.
Gabriel nodded. “You’re not the first person to point that out.”
“No,” said the Lady. “But I am the most clever. You will draw two cards from those before you, and they will tell you what they mean.”
“Don’t you mean you will tell me?”
“Be quiet,” said the Lady, with refreshing impertinence. “Choose.”
Gabriel spent a good half a minute looking at the cards, all beautiful, nothing standing out to him in particular. Eventually he chose one because it was almost hidden by another, and a second because it had a small crack in the gold leaf.
She laid the cards out side by side and turned the first one over.
It was a castle tower, rent by lightning, its occupants—who were so large they would have taken up half the building, had they been inside it—falling in dramatic style with blank expressions on their faces.
Rubble littered the grass below, and a scarlet sun seemed to be urging the lightning on.
“The Devil’s House,” said the Lady. “What is it saying to you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “That my castle is falling down? It is actually. They’ve been repairing the roof for fifteen years, and every time they finish, it starts falling in somewhere else and they have to start again.”
“You are being glib.”
“I am a bit,” Gabriel conceded. “Sorry. Um. It looks like … some sort of disaster.”
“Yes,” said the Lady. “A sudden change. An unforeseen catastrophe. The collapse of your old life, your beliefs, the things you once held dear. The loss of ones you loved. This is the challenge you face, and it is monumental.”
Everyone knew Gabriel had lost his father in a sudden and violent catastrophe. No magic required.
“And this, I think…” said the Lady, pointing to the two figures falling, divided by the tower crumbling in the background. “Two people, falling apart. Separated by circumstance, not lack of love. A relationship lost in the rubble.”
Gabriel leaned in to look closely at the card, so she wouldn’t see the expression on his face. He was done being sad about this. He’d already decided.
“And now, for the future…”
It would be something regal, Gabriel thought.
A king on a throne. She’d tell him that he’d grow to be the strongest and most beloved king who ever lived.
That was the sort of thing people liked to hear.
If she wanted to be written into his story, it would be the logical thing to do, nice and neat—if there was a picture of a sad, lonely man in there, she’d probably already hidden it.
It wasn’t a king on a throne. Gabriel actually had no idea what it was.
It looked like … lanterns, perhaps, hanging from a ceiling.
Striped globes of azure and gold. There were five of them, with a border of green ivy and a few charmingly simple flowers scattered down the middle, the fifth lantern lying on its side.
“This is the Five of Cups,” said the Lady, “but it is reversed.”
“Is it?” said Gabriel. He picked up the card and held it closer to the candle, soliciting a hiss of warning from the Lady. He turned it around, and yes, they were cups—elaborate goblets, filled with some green mystery liquid, not unlike the tea he’d just refused to drink.
“Put it down,” she said bossily. “You see it is reversed, like before.”
Gabriel did as he was told. “I can’t tell you what this one is saying to me. It’s not really saying anything. I thought they were lanterns.”
“Shh now, please. I’ll tell you.” She regained her composure and then tapped the card.
“It is a good card. It means a bright future. But that is not all it means. It is … acceptance. You cannot change the past, but you must accept it.” Gabriel nodded.
He’d already come to that conclusion by himself. Ho-hum.
The Lady looked annoyed. “No. Stop nodding. You must fully understand what it meant, what it still means, and through it you must understand yourself better. You are in pain, but you must forgive yourself, and you must risk opening your heart again, knowing how much it hurts when you fail. That is true acceptance. Not this … giving up.” She gestured at him, obviously unimpressed.
“It is not hiding. It is facing the world as it is, and as you are.”
Gabriel sat in a stunned silence until he realized she was expecting him to say something. “Oh. Good.”
He was going to continue hiding, thank you very much. There was bravery, and then there was stupidity—opening himself up to love someone who had already moved on was a tragedy with only one ending.
The Lady tsked, as if reading his mind, and rolled her eyes. “Send someone else in,” she said. “And I wish you good luck running the country. You need a little.”
“… Thank you?”
Arthur was waiting by the door, looking vaguely amused by the whole thing. Something in Gabriel’s face must have given him pause, because he seemed downright worried when he knocked and was told to enter.
“I got a guy driving a chariot and two bright young things getting married,” Sidney said between mouthfuls of hot game stew. They had made camp farther down in the valley, out of the wind. “And the chariot was for … all the turbulence we’ve had, me and Ags, and then the love was for our future.”
“You’ve had turbulence?” asked Bridget.
“Oh, yeah. Tons. Apparently I’m sort of thoughtless and a bit hot-headed, and she’s stubborn and expects too much of me. But we always come right in the end. What did you get, Art?”
Arthur wasn’t eating much of his dinner.
“Oh,” he said. “I don’t know. I’m going to be rich and famous, and get taller somehow.”
“That’s not what she said.”
“How would you know? Just be happy with your cart and your love and shut up.”
Sidney leaned away from the fire to crane his neck and shout, “What did you get, Hurst?”
Sir Hurst was talking to Gwen and some of the guards, and did not reply. He’d refused a reading, and the Lady had chased after him waving cards in his direction, while he steadfastly tried to ignore her.
“He probably got a big sword,” Adah said. “And another big sword. Past sword, future sword.”
“Ha,” said Sidney, content. “Yeah. What about you, Arden?”
Florian had been quietly eating his stew. He dabbed at his mouth with his sleeve and said, “Upside-down Time, right-side-up Empress.”
“Which means?”
Florian shrugged. “Too much time alone, I suppose. Isolation. And, uh … fertility.”
Sidney laughed. “You pregnant, Florian?”
Arthur poked at his stew. “His wife is.”
This had the effect of a battering ram on Gabriel, who put down his spoon, ears ringing with the word “wife,” and said, “You’re married?”
“Yes,” Florian said, unable to conceal a smile.
“Five years. We were childhood sweethearts. I have … somewhere, I have a portrait…” He dug around in the bag at his hip and pulled out a small flat wooden box, which when opened at the hinge, revealed a painting of a pretty woman with high cheekbones and russet skin, her dark hair adorned with minuscule chains of jewels.
Gabriel wet his lips, which were suddenly very dry. A wife. A wife, and he loved her. Besotted, from the look of him. And Arthur knew. A wife. A wife for Florian. “You didn’t … say.”
“No,” Florian said, looking slightly nervous now. “Actually, I wanted to … Could I speak to you for a moment in private?”
“Your Majesty,” said Sir Hurst, appearing as if by magic. “If you’d like me to accompany you…”
“No,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “No, thank you, that won’t be necessary.”
They walked a little way away from the glow of the firelight to the perimeter of the tents.
Gabriel felt on fire himself. If Arthur wasn’t with Florian …
If he wasn’t with anyone … If he’d agreed to come on this quest, and spend weeks on the road with Gabriel, sharing more gentle glances and kind words than they’d exchanged in months, then maybe, just maybe …
“My wife and I already have a son,” Florian said to Gabriel, as they walked.
“He’s four, and he’s brilliant. I’d do anything to protect him.
When I thought someone might be coming to the house after the …
uprising, that they might want to end my father’s line …
it was torture. But then you invited me here.
And I thought it might be … I know it’s a delicate situation, and I didn’t want you, or anyone, to think that I might have designs on… ”
Gabriel with no heir; the dead usurper’s son with one already born and another child on the way.
Family too, related to the royal line. He could see exactly what the problem was.
It sort of made sense actually. Florian could try to finish his father’s work, and he might be able to do it without much bloodshed—just make the case that he had a prince ready to go, and the cultists might follow him.
Especially years down the line, if no heir was forthcoming, which … it probably wouldn’t be.
“I don’t think that,” Gabriel replied. He might have done, before meeting Florian; he was sure some of his advisors still would.
Lord Best would have a fit. It should have been bad news, really, or at least complicated news, but something heavy had been lifted.
He’d been so convinced of Florian and Arthur’s romance, so resigned to the fact of it. And now, thank God, a lovely wife.
“Good. Good. All right. Well, now you know.” He smiled weakly, and Gabriel smiled back, genuine, relieved.
“You and Arthur,” he said suddenly, thinking of the complex affairs of Arthur Pendragon’s knights, Gwen’s assertion that she could love the right man if she met him, and wanting to be absolutely sure. “You’re … close.”
“Yes, we’ve been getting to know each other.”
How to ask this without asking it? “And you like him.”
“He’s very likeable,” said Florian. He cleared his throat, and then, with some hesitation, he said, “I’m in love with my wife. And I don’t … I’m not … I understand that Arthur is inclined that way, and the Lancelot laws … I’m in support of them. But it’s my wife for me.”
“Oh,” Gabriel said, breathing out. “Good. That’s … lovely. Good for you.”
“And I’m sure you know Arthur certainly isn’t in love with me, because—” He cut himself off, but Gabriel wasn’t really listening.
He was looking back at the fire, where he could make out gesticulating silhouettes, Arthur unnaturally still at the edge of them.
Was there really still a chance? If he were a braver man, would Gabriel be able to take it?
“I didn’t know that actually.”
“Ah. He’s not.” Florian looked uncomfortable suddenly, more uncomfortable than he had while trying to explain that he loved his own wife.
“I can’t pretend to know the particulars of your …
situation, but I do think you gave me a chance.
All of you. Excepting Sir Hurst. And I think maybe, with just the one life to live and all, you ought to …
give yourself a chance too. I hope that’s not too vast an overstep.
” He smiled tentatively. “Anyway, I’ll let you …
I’ll get back to…” And he made a quick exit, leaving Gabriel standing there in the gloom, face half turned toward the light.