Chapter 24 #2
“A year,” he replied, and another flash of anger crackled through me.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What you did was a noble act. Does the King allow for a knight’s mother to be maligned without answer?”
“It wasn’t only my defence of her, but speaking her name at all. My uncle…she is the blood link between us, but he forbids any mention of her in his court.”
“His own sister?” I exclaimed, as if what he was saying sounded completely bizarre.
It did, I supposed, from the perspective of an outsider.
So much of what had happened—the war Arthur and I had been fighting in the strangest ways, my status as Camelot’s sworn enemy, first unfairly then later well-earned—I had just accepted as part of my life, but I had never paused to consider how peculiar it all was.
Yvain nodded, as if he understood my confusion. “They were once close in heart and mind. She descended into corruption and was exiled, but before that my uncle held her in his highest regard.”
“He has spoken to you of this?”
“Not him, but others have,” he replied. “About the past, better tales of her, things I am not supposed to know. Even from within the court itself.”
Sir Kay, I thought with a surge of fondness, sceptical of absolutes and always happy to offer the contrarian view. Elaine too; my middle sister did her part and would have given the fairest account, my flaws and merits both.
“You have an open heart,” I said.
“Maybe,” he replied. “Or perhaps I simply do not believe her capable of so much maleficence, in the way it is claimed.” He looked at me directly, so sudden I had to hold fast to the glamour. “Is that wrong of me?”
“N-no,” I quavered. “It is the decent and fair-minded view. Things are always more complicated than they seem.”
Yvain sighed. “But she did betray my uncle, terribly. Ran away from Camelot, threatened the kingdom, tried to destroy him to snatch his throne. Some say it broke his heart—others claim he expected it due to a prophecy. My father says her punishment was well-deserved and mere exile wasn’t harsh enough.
In any case, her name is the only thing we cannot utter in the King’s vicinity.
As I discovered when I tried, and found myself banished. ”
“What did your father say? Couldn’t he argue your case?”
“Yes, he could have, and perhaps it would have been different,” he said. “As it was, he agreed with the High King.”
If I ever saw Urien again, I would burn him anew for letting his hatred for me hurt our courageous son. What good was he if he could not save Yvain from unjust punishment?
“You should be proud,” I said firmly. “You defended your mother’s honour.”
Yvain’s brow creased. “At first, I thought I was protecting my own honour, but now I don’t know. My mother brought me forth to life, after all. I cannot escape that. Nor will I be ashamed of who I am. She is part of me.”
If I had died in that moment, my son’s words would have been enough.
Yvain had gone against what he had been raised to believe and formed his own feelings about his mother.
It had cost him to stand in my defence—he must have known it would—yet he had spoken up anyway.
To my shattered heart, it was as much of an absolution as I could hope for, even if I could never deserve such a thing.
When I didn’t reply, he gave a rueful smile. “I don’t know why I have told you all of this. Though perhaps you see now why I wish to be the one who finds Sir Lancelot.”
“You do not fear him…gone?” I asked. “For good?”
“Lancelot—dead?” He shook his head vehemently. “No, he cannot be.”
The fervent belief Lancelot conjured in his peers was still perplexing, but I understood it better now. Most days, the way he carried himself suggested that if Death came for du Lac, he would buffet the hooded one on the skull with a sword hilt and take his pale horse as a prize.
“Regardless, it is no use,” Yvain added. “If Lancelot is alive, he will be long gone by now. Without knowing the road he took, I’ll never catch up with him.”
He sighed deeply, so defeated that I wanted to put my hands to his face, look into the eyes that I had given him and say everything would be all right. The afternoon light was already fading into a lavender dusk; our time ran short.
“My mistress’s manor sits in the shadow of the two highest mountain peaks in south Britain,” I said. “Just off the Roman road that leads through Cymri lands. If Sir Lancelot has recovered and departed as he swore he would, where do you believe he would go?”
Yvain considered it, then shook his head dismissively. “I don’t know, I—”
“You know your friend,” I encouraged. “I’m sure you could make a good guess.”
“I suppose,” he said hesitantly, “I’d say Lancelot would ride the Roman road north to Chester or so, then turn northeast and keep going to the coast. He has a castle in that part of the country—it makes sense he would go there.
” By the end of his thought he had grown in surety, sitting taller in the saddle.
“Yes, I’m certain that is what he would do. ”
“There, you see,” I replied. “Already you have a plan. You will find him, Sir Yvain. I have faith.”
He offered me his bright, hope-giving smile. “Thank you, my lady. If I succeed in my quest, it will be in no small part due to you.”
His gracious words tore at my heart, the weight of my deception crushing any happiness I might have felt. I couldn’t bear to lie to my son any longer—to hide myself, my love or my regret from him for another moment. Nor could I tell him the truth.
My only choice, once again, was to let him go.
As the sky began its tilt towards twilight, I gathered my courage. Reluctantly, I cast a whisper of a sleep charm across him and watched him yawn.
“You are tired,” I said. “Let us stop. You can sleep, and I will take first watch.”
Yvain opened his mouth to protest, but another yawn stole his words. “I insist,” I said. “I promise I will wake you for the slightest disturbance.”
I led us off the road to a grove of oaks.
At my urging, Yvain settled back against a trunk with his mantle drawn across his body and closed his eyes, slumbering deeply within ten breaths.
I had not seen my child fall asleep for so many years, but he was just the same: quick to succumb, trusting, an abandon that still spoke of an innocent heart.
I watched him a while longer, then cast a web of invisible protection over his sleeping form so he could not come to harm. The thought of leaving him was unbearable. If I could, I would have ridden at his side forever.
But for his sake and my own, I could not stay. Silently, I retrieved my horse, whispered my farewell into the air, then galloped off by the blue light of the moon and didn’t stop riding until I had reached Belle Garde.