Chapter 24
How I kept the glamour about my person I will never know.
I hadn’t even known he was there, I thought, as Yvain walked beside me to the palace’s main door.
Shock had stolen my ability to speak, along with the sheer force of concentration needed to keep the veil of illusion in tact.
I contemplated running away; I had planned to escape any escort Arthur chose, and the idea of riding concealed beside the son I had not seen since he was eight years old seemed a punishment too great for both of us.
But as we waited wordlessly for our mounts to be brought, I couldn’t help but steal a look at him, then another, and again—at his grown man’s face, new but reminiscent, the even features and handsome aspect that he wore with ease but not arrogance.
On my fourth glance, he caught my gaze, smiling with a companionable kindness.
I knew then that even if doing so was torture, I would stay by his side for as long as I could.
“Are you ready, my lady?” he asked, as the horses came.
I nodded, too afraid of my true voice coming forth to utter a word. When my son held out his hand to help me into the saddle, I hesitated for a moment then did what any typical lady would do—I took it.
The warmth of his palm swept through my blood as an ache.
I wanted to take him into my arms, stroke his hair in the way he had loved as an infant.
He was a head and a half taller than me now, and broad-shouldered like his father, though his figure carried more deftness than Urien’s brute bulk.
Nevertheless, I could still see the child beneath—a primal instinct for the son I had carried and birthed and nursed.
No matter how old or changed he became, no matter how far we had been separated by time and kings and my own grave errors, Yvain was my baby and would always be so.
The glamour shivered with my erratic heart as I settled into the saddle, so I drew the hood of my travelling cloak up.
Yvain mounted and we rode out of the palace courtyard, along a path beside the river.
The tide was in and I reached for the water’s essence, letting the element play its soothing, ancient song in my veins.
A polite cough drew my attention. “Apologies, my lady,” Yvain said. “It might be helpful if you tell me which direction you are travelling in.”
His smile was sleepily charming as it always had been, but with a self-contained calm that sang of my own mother.
He had never known his grandmother, Lady Igraine; the last I had seen her was in this same palace, when he was barely a glimmer in my womb.
That he smiled her way was innate, and too much to bear. How many pieces of mine did he carry?
“West,” I croaked.
We rode along the river until we left the city walls behind, trekking beyond flattened farmland onto a wide forested road. Cathedral bells rang in the distance, the second set we had heard; over an hour had passed and I still hadn’t managed another word.
In the end, it took my son’s grace to do what I could not. “I beg your pardon, my lady,” he said. “Perhaps we have not been well enough introduced.”
“Sir Lancelot asked me to keep my name a secret,” I said quickly. “So no one can use it to find him.”
He nodded consideringly. “Then it is a pleasure to meet you, Lady of No Name.”
It made me laugh, regret quick at its heels. I would have to escape at some point—I could not lead him within ten miles of Belle Garde. He had already stood at the entrance to Morgan le Fay’s enchanted vale and knowingly turned the other way.
Still, I had always been weak for the wants of my heart. However long this lasted, I wished to know him as much as I could.
“Thank you, good Sir Knight,” I said. “I would gladly hear more of you.”
He bowed his head courteously. “I am Sir Yvain. Son of Urien.”
My blood ran cold in an instant, tendrils of nausea spreading through my body.
“Is that what they all call you? An extension of your father?” It came out harder than I intended, and his brow furrowed. “I mean, I thought you were a knight of Camelot,” I added. “Part of King Arthur’s…Table, is it?”
“The Round Table,” he supplied. “I’m not a member of that knightly order yet. One day, I hope—when I have proved myself worthy.”
It came as a surprise that Yvain hadn’t been inducted into the King’s most prestigious order of knights. Urien, cowardly rakehell as he was, had a seat, yet Arthur had denied his own nephew?
“Why have you not been deemed worthy?”
He regarded me with sudden uncertainty. “My lady, you ask bold questions.”
His waver made me even more curious, but I held to the damsel’s decorum. “Very well, something simpler,” I conceded. “What does Sir Yvain of Camelot do for amusement?”
The change of subject relaxed his shoulders. “Jousting, hunting. I like to spar with my sword. I enjoy singing, if there is enough wine at hand. Any game involving a ball, some might say. Oh, and falconry—that is a great passion of mine.”
The latter revelation knocked the breath from me. “How so?” I managed. “Did your father teach you?”
I was surprised Urien had let him indulge a pastime his mother had enjoyed at all. Or, more likely, my ignorant husband had not known that about me.
“No,” he replied. “My father is a king and busy, but has little interest in birds. We had a good falconer in my childhood home—Kit. He taught me.”
The memory struck with loss and affection: Kit, the young deputy falconer at Castle Chariot, whose sister Elisa I had saved from death. He knew my love for falconry and had given the gift to my son. So many people I had been forced to leave behind.
I wanted to question him on what he learned, whether his teacher mentioned the same affinity in his mother. Disingenuous, all of it, but I could not help but seek out our joint traits, and wonder whether Yvain knew what we shared.
Yet it was untenable, too much to ask. I was a lie, a stranger behind a counterfeit face. I had no right to any of his past.
Forcing my curiosity aside, I returned to the present. “So now we are acquainted,” I said. “Why are you not yet worthy of the Round Table?”
Yvain sat back in the saddle and regarded me intently, for so long I wondered if the glamour had held. Eventually, he sighed and returned his eyes to the road. “Before I begin recounting my not particularly interesting tale, perhaps you could answer a question I have?”
My heart took a yearning leap. “Yes?” I said nervously.
He considered me again, then shook his head. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”
“Sir Yvain, if I am to trust you as my escort, then you must speak freely.”
A slight flush bloomed across his face. “Just about where, more specifically, we are headed. It is my honour to escort you anywhere, but I confess I have another purpose. I…thought you might lead me to Sir Lancelot.”
Relief flooded my body, half disappointment. “I see,” I replied. “But Sir Lancelot said he did not wish to be found.”
“I know, but someone will go and seek him—King Arthur won’t want Lancelot far from his side for long. Even if he has left your mistress’s house, I thought perhaps I could learn the road he took, and follow his route.” He cleared his throat. “It sounds rather impulsive, now I’ve spoken it aloud.”
His determination to question accepted wisdom struck me with pride. Here I was in his blood—his mother’s rebellious spirit alive in his burning desire to solve a problem, save his friend. His father never had half as much spine as our son was showing now.
“You and Sir Lancelot are friends?” I asked.
“I love him as though we were brothers. I cannot count the occasions he has saved my hide. I’d like to be the one to find him this time—to return the favour, and… ”
“Because it would put you in good stead,” I concluded. “With King Arthur.”
He smiled, blushing again. “There you have me caught. My reputation at Camelot will prosper, yes, but I miss Lancelot too. All I ask is to be taken where you saw him last, and by my faith, I will be your knight forever.”
Another blow landed upon my weakened heart. You are already mine forever, I thought. Even if you will never suffer to know it.
“You speak of your reputation as if it needs improvement,” I said. “Why?”
He looked down, fussing with the laces on his gloves. “A while ago—well, not that long—my uncle…King Arthur, he…banished me from his court.”
Motherly outrage reared in me like a woken dragon, but I managed to stop my own voice from breaking through. “Goodness!” the damsel exclaimed. “What had you done?”
For a moment, he looked slightly mutinous—another sliver of myself reflected. I wondered if Yvain had ever unleashed his Morgan side upon his father.
“A handsome mantle was sent to Camelot as a gift for the King,” he said.
“But it was poisoned, deadly. God be thanked, its danger was discovered before he could wear the garment, though by causing the death of the unfortunate messenger who brought it. However, the King declared that it was my mother who sent the mantle to cause his death. This did not sit well with me, so I stood up and argued that she could not be to blame.”
I gripped the saddlebow lest I slip sideways. “You didn’t think she was guilty?”
He shook his head. “There was no proof—certainly not enough to make such a declaration. To begin with, she is far cleverer than that, and it did not seem like something she would do. The King took my words as defiance, and sent me from the court.”
My first impulse was to cry out he was right, that for all the chaos I had inflicted upon Camelot, sending a piece of clothing to murder Arthur was not one of them, and I indeed was wiser than such a faulty scheme.
I wanted to assure my son he had acted with honour and courage, and no king could ask for more.
But I was either an unimportant damsel or his wayward mother who had left him behind; neither of us had the privilege.
Instead, I swallowed my feelings and asked, “How long were you banished?”