Chapter 20 #2
I was conjuring a small rainstorm and wondering whether sending it across would speed things along, when the ground vibrated and a train of large horses thundered over the opposite horizon, bearing heavily armoured men and red-and-white banners.
Amongst them, gold-armoured on a pristine white warhorse, rode Arthur.
The Knights of Camelot were too late, but the High King had come.
The procession halted, Arthur riding to the front and dismounting before the lowered drawbridge. A shining silver figure was already striding forth: Sir Lancelot, still present, coming to meet his lord.
They stopped a few yards apart, regarding one another, an endless pause stretching between them. Then, finally, Camelot’s champion dropped to his knee and bowed.
Arthur looked strangely relieved. “Congratulations, my friend,” he said. “I commend you to God for your courageous feat.”
When the knight rose, I expected them to embrace as brothers-in-arms usually did after battle, but instead, Lancelot turned and walked back into the vanquished tower, leaving his King in his silent wake.
*
When night fell, Lancelot had not come.
It was long before midnight, but Arthur’s arrival sat uneasily within me.
At first, their obvious tension was proof of the breach between King and knight, a more serious fissure than Kay had described.
Yet as the hours wore on, the delay took on a different cast. Maybe my oathbound prisoner and Arthur had talked, resolved things.
Lancelot was unpredictable, and I would not lose him now, not this way.
Shrouding myself in mist, I walked the few hundred yards to the tower, the royal flag now flying over the ramparts.
A communal meal had not long been called, so I waited until all were settled to their food, then slipped through a side gate and kept to the shadows.
Eventually came the good-night murmurs of men retiring to bed, lit windows snuffed out, and the building exhaled with collective sleep.
It was too risky to conjure fire in my palm, so I proceeded by torchlight and the generous moon until I found myself in a small stableyard just as a towering figure emerged from an open row of stalls. His head was down and his presence belaboured, as if he were exhausted to his very bones.
“I heard of the tower’s liberation hours ago,” I said.
Lancelot did not flinch, only gave the damsel a weary nod and leaned heavily against the nearest wall. Faint runnels on his cheeks suggested tears, but his eyes were dry.
“It’s not yet midnight,” he replied. “I’ve broken no oath. I was ensuring all was settled before I returned.”
“And is it?” I asked. “Settled?”
He shrugged. “As far as it goes.”
Whatever plagued him, I knew he wouldn’t speak on it here, so I let it pass. “In that case, I am here to summon you,” I said. “You must honour your agreement with my mistress and return to her vale.”
He cast sharp eyes up at me. “Your mistress, is it?”
It was an open question, but I couldn’t be sure what he was asking so I said nothing. His pale stare held me rapt, disbelieving and inescapable.
“I know what this is,” he murmured. “Who you are.”
It came forth with certainty, but no threat. “Is that so?” I replied, and he gave a slow, definitive nod. In his gaze, I felt the same thrill of recognition as the night before, along with a different rush, hot and alive through my body in a way I hadn’t felt for years.
“No more pretence,” Lancelot said. “Show me.”
In the instant he said it, I knew it was what I had wanted since looking in the bedchamber mirror and leaving my eyes their own shade of blue.
Exhaling, I let go of the glamour, pushing the illusion away. The disguise fell away in layers, dissolving into curls of silvery smoke until I was Morgan again.
Lancelot made no sound or movement, so I edged closer, letting him take in my true face for as long as it took. His heartbeat pounded slightly faster, but he did not recoil or show any signs of horror, just kept regarding me keenly, as if nothing had changed.
“Well?” I said. “What will you do now?”
He considered my challenge, glancing up to the darkened tower, then back at me. At length, he sighed deeply and said, “Let us ride out. We do not have to go far, just… ”
He stopped, biting his lip. Away from here, he did not say.
“Agreed?” he said instead. “I can guide us safely by the moonlight, if you trust me.”
I took him in, his weighted posture, the flexing tension in his temple and jaw, as if he were experiencing a persistent pain. My fingers twitched in anticipation, but the parts of me that knew grief recognized that this was not an ailment curable by healing.
“I trust you,” I said.
Decisively, he pushed himself up from the wall. His armour and sword hung nearby, sparkling like new, the scent of vinegar on the air. While the others were feasting, Lancelot had chosen to spend the hours polishing his armour like a punished squire.
Lifting his mail hauberk, he eased it over his head then slipped on his muddied, blood-speckled tunic, a contrast to the perfect sheen of his mail.
Lastly, he picked up his weapon belt and drew it around his waist, but his hands shook on the buckle and it slipped from his grip.
Cursing, he tried again, but the judder of his nerves overcame him, belt falling to the floor with a crash. I had never seen him so unmade.
I went to his side and retrieved the belt. “Let me do it.”
To my surprise, he stood like an obedient horse while I passed the leather around his waist and girded him with his sword. I had just secured the buckle when his hands covered mine.
“I need to see someone, just briefly,” he said. “Await me here.”
Before I could prevent it, he pulled away and strode off.
A bolt of doubt shot through me; I wondered if he was going to raise the alarm or even rouse Arthur.
Perhaps Lancelot’s sense of justice was greater than their rift.
I drew the glamour back down, waited three more heartbeats, then followed him into the tower’s inner keep.
Halfway along a twisting passageway, I spotted his bloodied silk back slipping into a nearby chamber. I tiptoed to the door and sharpened my hearing.
A familiar voice spoke, gruff with sleep and an Orkney burr. “What is…du Lac?”
There came the sound of creaking bed slats. “If you’re going to wake me in the middle of the night,” Gawain said, “at least have the good grace to be a willing paramour.”
It elicited a soft laugh from Lancelot, then his tone fell to seriousness. “My friend, listen. I have to go—tonight. In the morning, just tell the King I am gone. I know they will look for me, but please, delay them if you can.”
“What are you talking about?” Gawain’s voice was filled with concern. “Where are you going?”
“That I cannot say.” He drew a deep, echoing breath. “Stand in for me, will you, as Queen’s Knight?”
I felt Gawain’s hesitation. “Lancelot, should I be worried?” he asked.
“No,” he replied, but it was half sigh. “Do not fear for me. Goodbye, my friend.”
“Nay, it is but farewell, surely?”
No answer came, but I heard the slaps of a brotherly embrace and approaching footsteps, so I slipped swiftly back to the stableyard.
When Lancelot returned, he noted the damsel’s reappearance with a bare nod, then wordlessly retrieved his horse, checked its girth and helped me into his saddle.
Without pause, he swung up in front of me, my body pressed against the hard relief of his back.
We set off through an unattended postern gate, following the rustling river to the aspen copse.
“The moon is strong and still rising,” he said when we had stopped and dismounted. “We can reach the valley by morning if we don’t stop.”
It was as we had agreed, but not as I expected.
Like any good knight, Lancelot held my stirrup and hand as I climbed aloft my own horse, then remounted himself, gesturing for me to lead the way.
All along I had anticipated a fight, some trick, an attempt at escape, yet here we were, about to ride back to Morgan le Fay’s Vale of No Return.
We spoke little on the return journey. My knightly companion was not uncivil, but kept up a pensive quiet, and neither I nor the damsel could think of a way to surmount it.
When we reached the lodge in Belle Garde’s valley, as a soft blue dawn breached the sky, Lancelot relinquished his horse, dropped his sword belt where he stood, then strode into his prison chamber and shut the door behind him without saying a single word.