Chapter 20
“This is the only chamber we have, but you are welcome to it.”
After some procrastination, Sir Lancelot and I had been left with no choice but to stop at the first building we found before darkness fell entirely.
The manor house was very small, but presided over by a vavasour who was abundantly happy to give us food and lodgings for the night.
It wasn’t until we had dined and were taken to our sleeping quarters that we understood his reference to a singular bedchamber was literal.
“I’m sure you don’t mind sharing,” our host added. “Given your relation.”
My knight-escort swallowed and said nothing. It had been his idea, not mine, to avoid questions of our virtue by claiming we were brother and sister.
“Of course,” I said. “We are honoured by your hospitality.”
The vavasour bowed and departed, leaving us alone.
Lancelot remained motionless just inside the doorway, so I took the taper he carried and walked around the room, lighting the candles until the chamber was bathed in soft yellow light.
In the middle stood a large, richly draped bed, fit for any noble guest, and a far less auspicious pallet against the wall, meant for smaller squires.
“This will suit us well enough,” I said, but my companion didn’t move.
“I’ll find somewhere else,” he declared. “It’s my lie that put us in this situation. I’ll sleep in the kitchens if I have to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “It’s late, we’ve been riding for hours, and there are two beds. Stand there all night if you wish, but I’m going to undress and go to sleep.”
It was bold behaviour for any lady, but the chafing glamour had me too restless to mind the damsel’s delicacies.
Lancelot nodded in vague agreement and I disappeared behind a nearby screen, letting the illusion drop from my body with a sigh of relief.
Recast, it should last a few hours while I slept, then I could rise before dawn and restore my disguise.
Methodically, I began to undress, savouring my liberation with each piece shed. Boots, belt, the blue serge surcoat, heavy and practical over my gown. I let down my own hair and shook the dark locks loose, massaging away the tension in my scalp.
A low sound reached my ears through the room’s peace. I paused, listening to the rapid murmur of words, recognizable by a familiar rhythm.
Hallowed be thy name.
Sir Lancelot was saying his prayers.
I dropped my hands to my waist, unlacing my undergown to the rise and fall of his voice. Forgive us our trespasses.
When I stood in my loose linen chemise, I drew a deep breath and cast the glamour once more, making sure it reflected the damsel’s ready-for-bed appearance, my tousled hair turned golden again about her shoulders.
Lead us not into temptation, I thought, and stepped out from behind the screen.
Lancelot looked up from where he knelt beside the large bed. He had disrobed to his breeches and billowing undershirt, fingers woven together in prayer.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, toying with something at his throat. Guinevere’s emerald ring fell from his hand, glittering like envy.
“Amen,” I said, when he failed to conclude. “What’s that?”
He glanced down, and the sight of the green stone seemed to deflate him. “Nothing,” he said, tucking the ring back into his shirt. He gestured to a wine tray that the vavasour had left us. “Shall we share a last cup before retiring?”
I nodded and he went to pour, returning with two goblets. I lifted mine aloft.
“What shall we drink to?” I asked, then saw an opportunity. “No—let us make a wish. What do you want, Sir Lancelot, more than anything on God’s earth?”
He fell still, and I could feel his heartbeat across my senses like a songbird’s wings. Confession laced the air between us.
“To perform a miracle,” he said.
His declaration caught me off guard, startling and sincere.
“What sort of miracle?” I asked.
His shoulders shifted in a slight shrug. “Something remarkable,” he said. “Beyond the skills I am known for, that which is expected of me. A pure act of wonder.”
I thought of his healing blood, how he didn’t know what ran through his body; the power that did not require a sword. How easily I could give Lancelot his miracle, teach him to harness the wonders within and change his entire existence.
Before I could offer a response, he drained his goblet and said, “It doesn’t matter. Perhaps for me, such things are not possible. Your turn, my lady—what is your wish?”
His quick self-dismissal left me intrigued, but he left no room for further questions. “I wish… ” I mused, then trailed off, eying the man before me, his demeanour both open and evasive. I put my cup down and stepped closer.
“I wish you would tell me what you hide, Sir Knight.”
He said nothing, so I reached for the silver chain between his shirt laces, seeking the ring. Lancelot’s hand fell on my wrist, soft and quick as a cat’s paw.
“I told you, there’s nothing to see,” he said. “We should rest.”
He moved his hands to my forearms and, with a delicate force, sat me softly down on the luxurious bed. In any other circumstance, a man trying to handle me this way would have been torched with my fury, but he did it with such gentleness that I allowed the presumption.
“That mean pallet will never fit you,” I said. “There’s plenty of room in—”
“Do not say it,” he interrupted. “For both of our sakes.”
His voice did not convince me; I put my hand on his wrist this time, and sat him down at my side. Lancelot complied without resistance or reproach. Our knees touched, and he did not prevent it or move away.
“Take the good bed,” I said. “You are the one who has to do battle tomorrow.”
He smiled, tired but unguarded. “I cannot. What kind of knight would I be?”
“One who is rested, and lives.” I lifted his bandaged hand, still in mine. “You only have one good arm, after all.”
His gaze roved my face, lingering on the dark-blue eyes I hadn’t changed, and I felt a warm, exposed sensation, as if he had seen through my disguise and recognized me. Part of me wished he had.
Without thinking too much about it, I sent a flush of healing through my fingers and felt the knife cut in his skin mend. It was so subtle I never thought he would note it, but a ripple of awareness passed through him as the cut vanished, a sensing of change.
“What is all this?” he said in a low voice.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I could not speak it aloud.”
“Speak it in my ear, then.”
Tilting down, he leaned towards my lips, so close I could see the leaping pulse at his throat. His breath scored a hot path along my neck.
“There is the way things appear, or how they really are,” I said. “You choose.”
He drew back and considered me with a quiet intensity, as if a secret accord had passed between us. “Things must stay as they are,” he said. “There is no other way.”
So we were decided; Lancelot had chosen denial.
Folding his fingers across his healed palm, I pressed his hand to his chest and stood up, relinquishing him and the comfortable bed. When I reached the narrow straw mattress, he hadn’t moved, a sculpture of indecision, sitting with his bandaged fist curled to his heart.
“Go to sleep,” I told him, and though I shouldn’t have, I raised my arm, captured the air within my fingertips, and extinguished the candles in one dark sweep.
*
By the time the new day had fully dawned, I had risen and restored the damsel’s glamour, and was awaiting Sir Lancelot at the manor’s entrance. The bandage on his hand, I noted, was gone.
We rode the rest of the way in a thoughtful but companionable quiet, and reached the so-called cursed vale mid-morning, dismounting in an aspen grove beside a river, half a mile from the Dolorous Tower.
I watched him fuss awhile, checking his horse’s legs and saddle, before strapping on his pauldrons and greaves with ruthless efficiency.
For a moment, he paused at the sight of his unblemished hand, then pulled his gauntlets on and came over to me.
Reaching to his back, he drew out a sleek dagger with a handle in the shape of a wildcat, spun the weapon on his palm and offered me the knife hilt first.
“I don’t need it,” I said. “I can protect myself.”
“Take it anyway,” he replied.
Reluctantly, I took the blade and he nodded briskly. “Some rules,” he said. “You will wait here and stay out of the tower’s view. For this quest to succeed, you must trust I will return, according to my oath.”
“I take no issue with that,” I replied. “Though if you are not back by nightfall—”
“Midnight,” he cut in. “If I do not return by then, come for me—the moon will be full enough. I will heed you, even if I cannot heed myself.”
In a sudden impulse, he took up my free hand and kissed it, then left me, leaping onto his horse from the ground and wheeling his mount in the direction of his next battle.
As I watched him canter off, I wondered if he was not only heading towards Gawain’s rescue but escape—if I had fallen for a ruse and given all my advantage away. My blood flared, but I felt the ghost of his kiss on my knuckles. I would trust him, for now.
I didn’t see Lancelot liberate the Dolorous Tower, but I heard of it from a passing shepherd who had borne witness. It seemed the famed du Lac went about his task with his usual strategic flair and ferocious will, and the entire campaign was over by mid-afternoon.
Meanwhile, I had become bored of watching the river and making the wildcat dagger levitate, and my compliance had begun to feel like a weakness, so I conjured a concealing mist and walked awhile, until the granite edifice of the Dolorous Tower appeared beyond the woodland boughs.
The castle indeed looked newly captured: shutters were flung open; the former lord’s banners torn down, a few knights patrolling the gateway.
Unseen, I settled against a rowan tree and waited for something to happen.