Chapter 5 #2
I stared at him but did not see. I was far from the comfort of Belle Garde, standing instead in the midst of the Throne Room, Arthur and Guinevere leading the mirth against my fury and devastation, the court’s howls of laughter circling me until I was dizzy with it.
My suffering, reduced to the final line in a favourite joke.
Humiliation hollowed my gut, the familiar heat of panic running over my skin.
Brushing past him, I charged out to the balcony, forcing my blurring eyes to focus on the view: the front green and meadows beyond; the rows of trees and burnished leaves still clinging to their branches.
The river’s reassuring rustle guided my breaths, until my heartbeat had slowed to a pace that felt less like dying.
I didn’t know how long I had been standing there when I felt Sir Manassen’s presence at my side. “I’m sorry, Lady Morgan,” he said.
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault. In hindsight, I’m not sure what I was expecting. What could ever make up for all that’s been done?”
His gaze followed mine across the treetops, and we were silent for a long time.
“Autumn,” he said at length, and with that singular word I knew he and I shared one thought. It was mid-September, nearing Accolon’s birthday, and we both felt the time of year like a knife edge grazing our skin.
“Autumn,” I agreed. “The household are planning a feast, to honour him.”
“He would be pleased. My cousin always did enjoy a revel—laughter, music, easy cheer. I never mastered that festival spirit of his, though he often tried to bring it forth in me. How will such a thing feel, for you?”
I shrugged. “I want it for them—for him. We should always try to celebrate Accolon and what he did here, how he made this place a home for us all. If we are to live in any particular way, then it should be his.”
I wanted to ask Manassen to be there for it, he whose grief resembled mine the most, but I couldn’t find the words. We still did not know one another enough.
“What will you do in your time away from the court?” I asked.
“I’ll be travelling to Gaul, to check on some private interests,” he replied. “My own, and…well, your Gaulish estate. Accolon’s manor, his lands, everything he earned from jousting or in battle. Unless you wish to use some other agent.”
“My estate?” I frowned in confusion. “We weren’t married. Accolon never had the chance to take me to Gaul. I have no claim over anything of his.”
He regarded me askance. “Lady Morgan, no matter what words were said in whose church, your life with my cousin was nothing less than a marriage. Anyone who observed you together could see that.”
It was strangely moving, coming from him, a gesture of belief in Accolon and me that I was never sure he truly felt. I smiled, but he averted his eyes.
“I know you think I drove him away from here,” he said.
“But Accolon was a man of wits, of survival. He wouldn’t have gone to Camelot, wouldn’t have left you, if he didn’t believe that it would be a straightforward forty days’ service, to affirm my place in the court.
He was honourable, driven by his passions, but not a strategic fool.
Nor would I have let him go if I thought he was in any danger. ”
“I know,” I said. “He told me you only ever wanted to protect him. I believe it.”
Sir Manassen gave a stiff nod, as if gathering himself against some errant emotion. “That means a great deal. I cannot express how much.”
He turned and looked at the joust meadow. It was occupied—Robin and his destrier, preparing for his daily drills. Quintain raised, he mounted up and cantered his horse in a loop, warming its paces for the charges ahead. My heart ached at the boy’s aloneness, even as his dedication made me proud.
“The day before I left here,” Manassen said, “Accolon and I were on that tilt field, taking a rest after running trick charges, games we had played as younger men. It was such a fine day. I remember thinking I had never seen the sky so blue.”
The memory of our Midsummers ached. “They were all fine days.”
“I was questioning him,” he continued. “How his interests were being managed, how his life here worked. A curse on my head for always focusing on life’s practicalities. Now, all I can think of is a thousand more interesting things we could have spoken about.”
His eyes closed, and when he opened them again they were misted. “It was then Accolon told me—his life was yours, everything he possessed, and if I had any concerns, he would write an official testament that day. It served me right, in a way.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t try to talk him out of it,” I said.
“Oh, I did, my lady. I tried my hardest to make him see sense. I said, ‘Give her everything? She broke your heart’—as if he had somehow forgotten his own past. I can hear my tone now—so self-righteous, so certain. Accolon just laughed and said, ‘Yes, cousin, she did. And I broke hers in return. Then she gathered up our pieces and let me put us back together again. Morgan is everything.’ ” He smiled with remembered affection.
“It struck the preaching from my tongue. He could always outfox me with his candour—his heart.”
In the meadow, Robin ran his first charge, striking the quintain with a deep thud.
The sound carried on the wind, hitting my chest as though the lance had buried itself there.
We watched the boy run another charge, then another, the silence between us fathomless, as if Manassen and I had fallen into the same great crevasse.
“Stay here awhile,” I said. “Do not go back to an empty house.”
He regarded me with glassy eyes. “Why?”
“Because I do not want for your loneliness,” I said. “I know how it feels. Sometimes, appearing whole before others is the only thing that keeps us drawing breath.”
He ducked his head, resting his fists against the balcony. I felt the stone grazing his knuckles as if it were my own skin. “Thank you, Lady Morgan. I think I will.”
He looked again at the view, tracking the path of Robin’s destrier, observing the boy’s seat, his form, the way he lifted his lance.
With a deft tilt, Robin aimed for the mannequin’s head—a risky, clever strike, Accolon’s audacious showpiece.
As the lance connected, I watched Sir Manassen’s brow rise in admiration and pain.
On the field, Robin eased his horse to a halt and turned to see what he had done, the absence of praise or advice echoing through his pause.
All he could do was couch his lance against the saddle again and set off for another charge.
Sir Manassen leaned forwards, anticipating the boy’s next attempt.
I put my hand on his arm, and it didn’t feel strange this time. “Go,” I said. “Joust with him, give him your advice, tell him all the stories of Accolon that I cannot.”
He looked surprised. “Will he want me to?”
“Of course he will. It’s all he wants.”
He gave the meadow one more look, then turned to me with a melancholy smile. “I would be honoured. With your leave.”
I nodded and followed him back inside, watching him retreat down the turret stairs. His footsteps faded, a tattoo of boots on stone recalling one short, unwanted phrase.
They laughed, it said; they laughed, they laughed, they laughed.
That night, when I finally fell asleep as the witching hour touched the dawn, I dreamed of a violent sea.