Chapter Thirty-Six
Thirty-Six
They almost lost a member of the round table the next day.
Agnes, who had stayed by her new husband’s side just long enough to see how unpleasant it was to travel with a large encampment in inclement autumn weather, left in the morning, and Sidney was so devastated waving her off that when she disappeared around the corner, he almost mounted his horse and rode after her.
“What if she’s robbed on the road?” he said, staring unseeing into his small ale when they all went back into the inn to eat. “What if she falls over and can’t get back up?”
“She’s with her cousins,” Arthur pointed out. “And she’s not as conspicuous as, say … the king, traveling with a company of thirty.”
It was still a novelty for Gabriel to sit opposite him at the table; to be allowed to look at him, talk to him, touch his hand.
“Stop holding hands,” Sidney said immediately. “I am distraught.”
He wasn’t the only one. Gwen had been in the most dreadful mood for days.
Gabriel had tried to understand exactly what was going on between her and Bridget, but the conclusion he’d come to, based on the little she was willing to share, was simply that Bridget had hurt his sister, again, and was therefore firmly in his bad books.
“You are a pot,” Arthur said, when Gabriel mentioned this, “and you are beholding a kettle, and you are about to make such an observation, the likes of which the world has never seen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that perhaps you might have realized by now that when people are struggling, their loved ones are collateral damage,” Arthur said. “And seeing as I was the one you hurt, I get to say whether we’re angry with Leclair, and I say no. I’m worried about Leclair.”
“Have you tried talking to her?”
“No,” Arthur said breezily. “Because she looks furious, and I think she’s in a foul enough mood to wrestle me properly, this time.”
“What?”
After breakfast, they were all called to meet in Gabriel’s room, as it was the largest and benefited from a table grand enough they could spread out their maps.
Gwen took her place next to Sir Hurst; Bridget went to lean against the wall, as far away from her as possible.
There was a frisson of excitement in the air though, that even interpersonal complications couldn’t quell.
Tomorrow was Grail day.
“What I don’t understand,” said Sir Leonard, “is why anybody would even tell us they’ve found it in the first place. Surely you’d want to hang on to it. Heal your ills.”
“A fisherman said he hauled it out of the sea,” said Sir Hurst. “He’s an extremely pious man.
One of those Arthurians of old who believes in magic, but that it’s all God’s doing, nothing pagan about it.
Blood of Christ in the chalice, et cetera.
He’s waiting for us to come and fetch it, because we’re good and true knights and he’s just a fisherman with gout. ”
Cardinal Richards sighed, clearly unimpressed by the captain’s assessment. “So why does he think it is, in fact, the Grail?”
Sir Hurst shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose it has Grail-like qualities. He’s been very insistent that we visit.”
“It was the Fisher King who guarded the Grail in the first place,” said Sir Florian. “Perhaps he’s come again.”
Master Buchanan nodded, enthused. Sir Hurst harrumphed, then tried to turn this into a cough.
Sidney sniffed thoughtfully. “Florian, you know about this stuff—do you think it’ll heal just our physical problems, or maybe our emotional stuff too?”
Sir Leonard laughed. “The fact that your wife has gone home and you won’t see her for a week or two is not the sort of thing people treat with magical Grails. Just have a drink and shut up.”
“How d’you know? You’ve never been Grailed before.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use it as a verb,” Cardinal Richards said, sounding very pained.
“I’d like to have my hairline Grailed,” said Sir Leonard. “It’s looking rather peaky in places.”
Sir Bowen sighed. “Your hairline is fine.”
“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, because yours is incredible.”
Gabriel thought, privately, that if he were to ask for one thing to be healed, it would likely be his hand—but if the Grail weren’t able to magically regrow limbs, then an end to his panic attacks would do.
He glanced over at Bridget, wondering if she was thinking the same about her own nerves, but she was looking out of the window, unreadable.
Sir Hurst cleared his throat pointedly. “He’s refused to tell anyone where he’s hidden it, because he thinks someone will steal it. Unfortunately, there were witnesses when he first discovered it, hence the need for secrecy.”
“I’d like to be taller,” Sidney said suddenly. “Do you think it does that? Taller?”
“I think it’ll hold your ale for you, and that’s about it,” said Adah. “It’s a cup.”
Gwen waited until everybody else had left, and then sat down on the edge of Gabriel’s bed, looking drawn. He hated seeing her diminished. It was unnatural.
“Still bad?” he asked.
“Still bad. I thought she’d made so much progress,” she said, smoothing her skirts and then rumpling them right back up again with her fists.
“Art says she’s just lashing out because she’s going through something.”
“Oh, like I’m not going through something. Like I wasn’t still grieving Father when she vanished on me the first time around, and still forgave her, because she was so willing to try. But this is the opposite of trying. It’s like she’s taken five steps forward and ten backward.”
“She hasn’t vanished this time. She’s right here.”
“Right here and refusing to be the one to talk first. The slightest thing happens and she goes right back to being … reticent, and silent, and pretending nothing bothers her at all when I know that’s certainly not true.”
Gabriel picked up the letter from the fisherman, glancing it over for the third time. “Why don’t you talk to her?”
“Because I shouldn’t have to! Because it’s not fair!”
“No, I suppose not. You still haven’t told me what she actually said.”
“She got angry with me when I was trying to help her! I said she didn’t have to be a knight. She told me … she said I didn’t know her. And that’s not true. I do know her. I think, by now, I might know her better than anyone does. Except maybe Neil,” she amended.
“It can actually be quite horrid,” Gabriel said mildly. “Letting people know you.”
“Oh, you’re as bad as her, you’re just feeling smug because you’re back with Arthur. Do you have any work for me? I need a distraction.”
“Work?” Gabriel said, tucking the letter back into the stack of papers. “Hmm. Not really.”
“That teacher at the school asked me, privately, if you might be looking to take on any orphans.”
“Orphans?”
“Yes, I think they hand them out like pies, unfortunately. And it’d be silly not to ask, when the king comes to visit. I told her no, but then I thought … perhaps, a ward?”
Gabriel sighed, thinking of a frightened, lonely child ensconced at Camelot, raised by a governess and pages, with occasional visits from Gabriel when he might pat them on the head and remark on how tall they’d grown.
He took no issue with the idea of helping orphans of course, he wasn’t a monster—he simply had no interest in raising one.
The pressure to mold one into his future heir … it felt more like a curse than a gift.
“I don’t want a ward.”
“You know they’re orphans either way,” said Gwen. “And they’d certainly have a nicer time being orphans at Camelot than here. Or, at least … they’d have better clothes, and more to eat.”
“Why don’t you take on a ward?”
“Actually, maybe I will,” Gwen said tartly. “But not right now. I was only a child about half an hour ago.”
“What if you take one on, name him heir, and then he turns out to be … evil?”
“Nobody’s evil, Gabriel, that’s Father’s father’s ghost in your ear. I wouldn’t live your life according to the doctrines of a man who thought that a woman who looked vainly into a mirror would see the devil’s arse in the reflection.”
“What about Florian’s son?” Gabriel said suddenly.
“For a ward? No. He loves that boy, he’d never let him come. Or, at least, he’d insist on coming with him.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Not just for a ward. For king. After I’m gone.”
Gwen laughed, then realized he was being serious. “You do know we just fought a battle to keep our line on the throne.”
“Well, no, we fought a battle to stop Lord Willard from violently killing us all to take our places. But he was family. Florian is family. And … I like him. What is he, third cousin? Something removed?”
“There’d be other claimants better suited, if we’re not going direct line,” Gwen said, tapping her mouth thoughtfully with her freckled fingers. “Our family in France … could be tricky.”
“He’d be the only one raised at Camelot and named heir as a child. And, realistically, there are always other claimants. Why not him?”
“Well,” Gwen said, getting up, much perkier than before, now that she had a problem laid out before her to solve. “We might as well ask anyway.”
“My son?” Florian said, watching both of them warily, as if this might be a prank. “King? Of England?”
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “Sorry, I don’t think I know his name.”
“Galahad,” said Florian, sitting down quite hard at the table. “His name is Galahad.”
“Oh, that’s great,” said Gwen. “Best of knights, Galahad.”
“But you…” Florian looked up at Gabriel beseechingly. “You might have a child, one day. And that would put my son in danger. Or you, Gwendoline … the king’s nephew…”
“I won’t,” said Gabriel awkwardly. “So that’s … not a problem.”
“And I…” Gwen’s face fell, the thought of Bridget and their uncertain future visibly passing darkly over her mind. “I suppose I might. Hard to know these things for certain. But I don’t think so. And we’d make sure your son had every protection.”
“This is all just theoretical,” Florian said, looking between them. “You’re not … demanding this of me?”
“No,” Gabriel said gently. “We never would. And if you said yes, of course you could all come and live at Camelot, you, your wife, your son. We wouldn’t … we certainly wouldn’t ever expect you to part with him.”
Florian threw his gaze up to the ceiling and sat there, drumming his hands softly on the table, thinking.
“I just don’t know,” he said finally. “I mean, we live a quiet life. As quiet as we can. Everything with my father … I wanted to keep my family away from it, from all of it. We barricaded ourselves into the house last summer, Sita didn’t sleep for weeks. ”
“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said, wincing.
“And then eventually someone did come, and it was … to invite me here. And I thought perhaps it was a trick. She didn’t want me to come. But I thought maybe it could … change things for us, make it clear to you that I am not my father, so we wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore.”
“And I hope it has done,” said Gwen. “I trust you. I think we all do.”
“Thank you,” said Florian. “I think my answer is … that I will have to think about it. If that’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” said Gwen. “And perhaps, after today, we’ll have the Holy Grail, and Gabriel will live forever as king, and we won’t be in any need of heirs after all.”
Gabriel, quite frankly, couldn’t imagine anything worse.