Chapter 19
While Camelot’s prized knight took a generous meal and armed himself ahead of his journey, I went to Alys and Tressa’s rooms and informed them of my intention to ride out. They had their misgivings, but I hadn’t told them the full extent of my plans, so there was little opportunity for discussion.
Within myself, at least, my intentions were clear: allow Sir Lancelot his heroic rescue and simultaneously have my “damsel” charm him into ease and conversation, playing on his breach with Arthur to gain information on the royal instability and, with any luck, his treasonous connection to the Queen.
Then, I would bring him back to Belle Garde softened, and persuade him to make official the confession to strike at Camelot’s very foundations.
What I needed now was the “damsel” herself.
The hour before we were due to leave, I went to my empty bedchamber and regarded myself in the looking glass: small in stature, deep-blue eyes, hair a black river about my shoulders, my face no different from the last moment Accolon had seen it. All this would have to change.
How should this young lady look to gain Sir Lancelot’s trust?
Similar enough to Guinevere that he would be stirred to intimacy, but not so much that he would close himself off in regret.
Fair hair, then, but paler gold, and an arrogant prettiness that would echo in his chest just enough.
Her eyes I made an arresting light blue, near identical to the knight’s own.
Sometimes, all a man wanted was to see his reflection and imagine himself understood.
Drawing the glamour down, I watched myself change, the last of my own image shimmering behind the lie. I made the maiden a little taller, then touched my throat.
“Pleased to meet you, Sir Lancelot,” I said experimentally. The sound was delicate as birdsong, and as pleasant to hear. When the damsel spoke, he would listen.
It seems my arts do have their uses, the sorcerer’s voice drawled in my head. How many times before you admit that my ways are your own?
I didn’t care, I told myself. For now, I was someone else.
But when I looked again at the damsel’s unfamiliar face, a deep sea blue looked back—my own eyes, unchanged.
A fault in my casting of the illusion, perhaps, but seeing their true shade brought a flash of defiance.
Why should I vanish entirely? Sir Lancelot would never notice, and I had lost enough of myself in my war with Camelot.
I deserved to remember who Morgan le Fay truly was.
*
The sight of Sir Lancelot ready for a quest was enough to take anyone’s breath away.
He stood outside his lodge prison, armed and upright in silver mail, a fierce star under the morning sun, not a trace on his tremendous figure that he had barely slept, or spent half his time flinging himself at doors.
I savoured the glorious vision of Camelot’s best knight, and felt the urge to break him like a new pane of glass.
However, I could not indulge my impulses. My damsel must be innocent, charming, beguiling. She must appeal to his masculine sensibilities in a way my true self would never condescend to.
The first thing my knightly companion did was stride over and bow to me, in a manner so absurdly graceful that I felt a flush up my neck.
“Pleased to meet you, my lady,” he said. “I am Sir Lancelot du Lac. It is an honour to have your company.”
I accepted his politeness, offering him my hand and some girlish name. He kissed my fingers, then took my palfrey’s stirrup and handed me deftly into the saddle.
“Lead the way,” he said, after mounting himself. “I am in your capable hands.”
We rode off through Belle Garde’s northern valley. The glamour was comfortable, stronger than it had been in Camelot, requiring less of my direct focus. Merlin’s demon magic yielded to practice like every other skill, and I was getting better.
My first words were to ask Sir Lancelot of his quest. He explained Gawain’s rescue in succinct detail, without deviation from the reasoning he had given to me as Morgan.
“A noble endeavour, saving a friend,” I replied. “I feel fortunate to have such a knight as you by my side.”
I wondered if it was too much flattery, too soon, but my compliment gave him no flicker of pause or doubt. He was clearly used to hearing a great deal of praise.
“What has your mistress told you of me?” he asked.
“Very little, aside from I am to show you the way to the Dolorous Tower, and return with you to Belle Garde. Why, what should I know?”
“Nothing, my lady,” he said lightly. “I am your knight, and you are my guide. That is all we need.”
I didn’t want to raise his suspicions, but our rapport was friendly, and patience had never been my strength. “Travelling companions often seek to know one another better,” I countered. “I’ve heard you were raised in a lake.”
He gave an easygoing shrug. “Maybe I was. Though it is a little early in the day for life stories. Ask me again later.”
We travelled a while longer, until I guided us off the road and into an airy wood carpeted with bluebells.
“How do you know the way?” Lancelot asked, as we rode under birdsong between shafts of sun. “Are you from near the Dolorous Tower?”
“Maybe I am,” I said coyly. “Ask me again later.”
I had never heard him laugh, and the sound was a music I could not have imagined, low and unguarded, clear as spring rain.
Our eyes met and we smiled at one another. Dazzled, I looked away, and he courteously returned his gaze to the road. In my senses I felt his nerves settle; the damsel being flustered had shown her as natural, uncalculated, allowing him to trust her a little more.
We passed a while talking on inconsequential things. When not fraught with anger or dislike, Sir Lancelot was good-humoured, friendly and surprisingly modest, with a confidence that landed naturally as charm.
“May I ask questions yet?” I said, just past noon. He inclined his head in assent. “Tell me of your life in the Royal Court. It seems such a faraway place, as if it isn’t real.”
His hesitation was barely a heartbeat, but I felt it.
“It is as real and magnificent as you can imagine,” he said.
“Though my life is the same as most sworn knights. Sometimes I have duties in court, for the King and Queen, and other times I am questing, or doing battle for the glory of the Crown. All is an honour.”
At my urging, he continued, amiably expanding upon the pleasures of his knightly life. He even began speaking of the love he held for Arthur and Guinevere, though when I looked interested he retreated from the subject, as if he had pressed upon a bruise.
“What of you?” I asked instead. “The man within the knight?”
To my surprise, he flushed, as though he was unused to considering his inner self. Beyond his appreciation for horses and swordcraft, time with his brothers-in-arms, I managed to extract that he occasionally read poetry and had mastered several musical instruments.
“Chess,” he added. “I like to play. Or I did, with the right partner.”
The answer was a kick to my sternum, bringing memories of Accolon and myself in Tintagel, first bonding over a chessboard, our connection growing strong.
“I know little of chess,” I said; the damsel was not me, after all. “I had a paramour who played, but I could not learn.”
Sir Lancelot regarded me with interest. “What became of him?”
Again I fought with the image of those earliest days, the happiness and thrill of being with my Gaul, feeling that the world would bend for whatever we wished to become.
“He is long gone,” I managed. “It was not meant to be.”
Lancelot gave a slow, sad nod, as if he understood, but still the past ached through my bones. I needed to take hold of it, make my pain useful at least, and now was my chance.
“Do you have a beloved, Sir Knight?” I asked. “Someone to return to?”
I expected at least resistance, but he answered. “I thought so, once. I loved and was loved in return. Now, I am not so sure. Things change.”
“Love doesn’t change without reason,” I said. “What happened?”
That gave him pause, and he was silent for so long I assumed I had over-reached. Suddenly, he turned, his pale-blue eyes locking with mine.
“I happened,” he said. “The way I…am made, how I can be. The circumstances—it is too complicated. My feelings remain, but I am not what she needs.”
I had not anticipated any answer, much less one of such honesty. “I’m sorry,” I heard myself say.
He sighed. “It is my own fault. Some say I feel too much. Love, anger, despair, the need to break free. At times, it leads me into trouble.”
His words echoed to my core, so apt they could have come from my own lips. “You are not your flaws,” I told him. “To feel things strongly is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“That is kind of you, my lady, even if it is not so simple.”
He smiled sadly and cast his gaze away, leaving me faintly adrift. For several miles we rode on in quiet, while I wished he would keep talking. I wanted to hear more of him, keep seeking the strange similarities I never expected us to share.
Late afternoon, we paused by a stream to let the horses drink and graze. Sir Lancelot refilled our waterskins, then we sat down amongst a haze of bluebells.
“How long until we reach the cursed vale?” he asked, then flushed. “My apologies. I should not speak thus of your homeland.”
I waved it away. “Not too much farther. We will have to pass the night somewhere, then the Dolorous Tower should be within reach by tomorrow noon.”
I plucked two of Tressa’s apples from my saddlebag and offered him one. He accepted the fruit with a melancholy smile.
“Sir Gawain loves apples,” he said. “Wherever he goes, he seeks them out.”
He took a short knife from his belt and cut into the fruit’s flesh, eating a slice from the blade. “We must pray tonight that he can hold on.”
I bit into my own apple, cold and wine-dark. “If Sir Gawain’s situation is so dire, would King Arthur not come to the rescue?”
“It’s not for me to say,” he replied. “When I left, the King had promised the Queen he would stay by her side.”
“She could join him,” I said. “It is said they’ve never liked to be apart.”
Sir Lancelot frowned, thrusting the edge of his blade hard into the apple. The bright steel slipped with the force of it and veered out, slicing into his left palm.
“Blood of Christ!” he exclaimed, rearing to his feet.
I leapt up in genuine surprise; in all the insults he had slung at Morgan, I had never heard him curse before. He stared at me, aghast with himself.
“I’m sorry, my lady. That was inexcusable.”
“It’s all right,” I replied. “Let me see your hand.”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. A flesh wound.”
I reached out anyway. “Here.”
At my insistence, he followed me to sit down again and let me draw his hand into my lap. He was right—the cut was long but not too deep, a row of ruby beads shining along the slim, clean line. My blood prickled in response, eager to heal.
“It shouldn’t need stitches,” I said. “I have muslin and a salve that might help.”
A slight tension girded his shoulders. “Did your mistress teach you this?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Lady le Fay is too busy to condescend to teach.”
His hand relaxed, my instincts straining to repair such a simple injury. I traced my thumb along the laceration and a drop of his blood sprung loose, marking my skin.
A rush of vitality shot up my arms, a pure, white-gold pleasure. The sensation careened around my body and glittered through my mind, formless and wild, different from mine, but instantly recognizable.
Sir Lancelot had healing in his blood.
It was all I could do to stop the wound from closing in an instant. With a gasp, I pulled away hard, as if trying to halt a runaway horse.
The knight regarded me with concern. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I… ” My voice was faint, breathless. “Clean your hand first.”
He obeyed, pouring the contents of his waterskin on the wound as I fought to recover my composure. Reaching for my saddlebag, I drew out muslin and a pot of chamomile ointment. The soothing scent rose up, but it didn’t help calm my racing pulse.
“I can tend it myself,” Lancelot offered. “You don’t have to—”
“It’s all right,” I said, beckoning, and he lay his hand back on my open palm.
Salve on my fingers, I prepared myself for the effect, and as I touched the open injury, his blood sang out more clearly.
His natural affinity was not as strong as mine; whatever he held felt dormant, without the clarity brought by years of practice and medicinal knowledge.
Still, it was there, running through his body like a river in the sun.
I let my fingertips circle his palm and drew steady, careful breaths, allowing our connection to flow through me without answering its call. I was in control now, as sure of my power as I was that Lancelot did not know of his.
A quiver of observation prickled over my skin, and I raised my gaze to find him looking at me intently. All of a sudden, keeping the damsel’s eyes as my natural colour felt like a mistake I should not have made.
I lowered my eyelids and reached for the muslin, methodically bandaging his palm. His attention remained on my face, so keenly it felt like touch.
I relinquished his hand with a shiver of relief. “All done.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I am in your debt.”
“You will have to be careful with it for a while. Palm injuries are tricky to heal.”
Lancelot raised the bandaged hand to his chest. “It won’t take long. Fortunately, I have always been a very fast healer.”
Perhaps he knew about his blood after all. “Why is that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “A blessing from God, maybe.”
Of course that’s what he thought. Outside of his knightly prowess, his life had never given him cause to need other talents. He was lauded enough by the world he inhabited.
Better that it be this way, I decided; no matter that this was a further similarity between us, a connection rare and powerful that I had never felt with another. I had my own purpose, and he was the road, not the destination.
“Evening approaches,” I said. “We should find a bed in which to pass the night.”
Briefly, Lancelot hesitated, then swung up onto his horse, glancing off through the trees at the fiery sunset.
“Yes,” he replied. “I think we should.”