Chapter 26
I expected resistance, but he didn’t display any appetite for more argument.
Heaving himself off the mattress, Lancelot pulled on his boots and accepted his outdoor mantle from my hands.
It billowed around his frame and I saw how much his suffering had diminished him, though he still cut a finer figure than most men.
Without ceremony, I returned to my horse, slipping on my leather gauntlet and unleashing the gyrfalcon. My prisoner followed me outside, blinking into the sunlight.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll escape?” he asked.
“Not in the slightest,” I said. “I don’t need doors or chains to contain you. I could strike you dead faster than this falcon on a rabbit.”
He looked at me in disdain, but for once, his beauty didn’t stun, dimmed to the point where I could now withstand its effect. Or else I had just become accustomed to him.
“A fine creature,” he commented, as I encouraged the bird onto my fist. “Prestigious. I was taught only kings can possess a gyrfalcon.”
“One cannot truly possess a preying bird,” I said. “But I will fly any falcon I wish.”
He pulled a considering face. “She must be heavy for you. I’m happy to carry her, save your struggle.”
It was such a delicate balance between courtesy and insult that I was impressed anew at his wit. “Ah, those celebrated noble manners,” I replied. “Unfortunately, I wouldn’t let you bear her if the Lord Himself made the petition.”
I slipped the bird’s hood off. She regarded Lancelot sharply, lifting her wings in disapproval. I stroked her breast and turned her away from having to look at him.
“She doesn’t like you,” I said.
He eyed me coolly. “I’m not elated by the company myself.”
I laughed, the usual pleasure I took in our sparring, but the falcon shivered. She was sensitive, too alert, her nerves put on edge by mine and Lancelot’s way with one another. It wasn’t fair to expect her to fly between whatever he and I conjured in the air.
“Unfortunately, I have no choice but to tolerate you, but I will not make her do so,” I said, leashing the bird to a hitching post. “Let’s go.”
We walked beyond the lodge’s walled garden, where a wide stream flowed towards a meadow speckled with cornflowers. Blossoming apple trees ran along our path, tinting the air with sweetness.
“I want my emerald ring back.”
His voice was sudden, decisive, catching me unguarded. “I no longer have your ring,” I replied.
“Do not lie. You and I are beyond such pretence.”
Heat flashed along my spine. “I am many things, but a liar isn’t one of them,” I said. “Your ring is back in the hands of your dearest Queen, as she bravely awaits the return of her lover in adultery. You.”
“I don’t know what you speak of,” he said by rote. “Whatever witch’s third eye you have, it does not see clearly.”
“I do not need a third eye when I saw enough with my own God-given pair at the Royal Court a few days ago.”
It stopped him, drawing down his gaze. “You saw the King and Queen?” he exclaimed. “Impossible. You are wanted for trial—King Arthur wouldn’t have you in his sight, much less let you walk away.”
I smiled enigmatically and made to move on, but he caught hold of my forearm. The skin was bare of sleeve where he held me, and an involuntary thrill glittered across our nerves. I watched him feel it, then gather himself.
“I went in disguise, aided by magic,” I replied. “No one ever knew it was me.”
My pointed words flickered through him, another reminder of our journey to the Dolorous Tower and all we had learned of each other. That I had given him every opportunity to break his oath without dishonour and escape, but instead he had followed me home.
“Well?” I added. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I said?”
He shook his head. “I have no need to know what you wrought. I have failed all those I love in ways you cannot comprehend. Whatever ill they think of me, it is deserved.”
His sheer inability to see his life with clarity lit me like a bonfire.
“God’s blood,” I said, pulling away from his touch.
“You don’t even know what you have, do you?
Hear this—I stood before the entire Royal Court and told them everything.
That you love the Queen and she is adulterous with you, betraying your King.
It didn’t matter—they all have so much blasted faith in you that it didn’t change a single thing. ”
I turned from him, gathering the control I didn’t wish to lose. I could feel his curiosity like sunbeams on my face.
“They didn’t believe you?” he asked.
“That’s right,” I retorted. “All they cared about was where you were, if you lived. Sir Gawain wanted to leap on a horse and gallop out after you. Guinevere defended you with such passionate rhetoric, she had the court agreeing that your love held no shame. Arthur wished only for you to return to his side. My own son was banished for speaking his mind, when you are praised, believed and valued, given the benefit of every doubt. Worse still, you refuse to see that you succeed because of this privilege every day of your life.”
For a moment, Lancelot looked shocked, and I saw my own anger reflected in his eyes, then he swung away, storming towards a hollowed tree trunk beside the stream. He kicked out, boot connecting with a heavy crack. I felt it hurt him, but he didn’t show it.
I marched after him. “Don’t you dare run away from this. You won’t wallow in self-pity, not now. Look at me.”
Unexpectedly he obeyed and turned back, his expression drained to one I had not seen yet—a deep, yearning sorrow.
“My lady, I can’t go on this way,” he said.
The intensity in his voice arrested me: firm but desperate. “What do you mean?” I asked.
He looked at the stream, water-light oscillating across his melancholy, remarkable face. For the first time, I considered that it might be a curse to be in possession of such beauty, to distract when sometimes all one needed was to be seen in the truth of one’s pain.
“I thought I knew my own mind,” he went on, “but your presence, what we are doing to one another… ” He glanced back, his gaze meeting mine. “This torment will be the death of me.”
His confession sapped the anger from my chest, leaving only my fluttering heartbeat. His eyes were so piercing I felt I had been pulled into a star.
“It’s you,” I said. “Do you not know it? Between here and the Dolorous Tower, there were a hundred chances to escape and you ignored every one. I offered you freedom and you refuse. You won’t let me be.”
At my words, he turned to me fully, a frown of question shadowing his brow.
“Either go and be at liberty,” I persisted, “or if you want to stay, and explore everything I spoke of, then find your honesty and say it.”
He stood almost rapt, body still but poised. Finally, he shook his head. “I can’t.”
When his answer came, I felt suddenly unstitched, vulnerable, exposed to the light in a way I was not used to. My voice came hard, but I could not hide the tremor in it.
“What is it?” I demanded. “Am I not enough for you?”
Lancelot didn’t balk, his eyes clear as the stream and direct, as if once again looking into the centre of my being.
“You,” he said, “are too much for me.”
I tasted the words, finding disappointment. I had heard it before, so many times. I said nothing and looked down, abandoning our shared gaze, his decision.
Amidst my silence, Lancelot sighed. “I will take your deal. For my freedom.”
I found no victory in his reversal. Nodding, I moved to step away, but he caught my hand in his, holding my palm to his deep chest. His pulse felt like thunder in my blood.
“I swear this oath to you, and before God, that I will obey your exact terms,” he said. “To stay away from the Royal Court until Christmastide, and follow the route you command.”
I cleared my throat. “There is one more thing. Yvain will be the one who finds you. When he does, if you speak of this, say I released you with mercy. Swear it to me.”
He nodded solemnly. “I will. Upon my honour.”
We stood there awhile, both joined and severed, then I drew my hand from his body and turned on my heel, heading back the way we had come. In my wake, I felt a shiver of his confusion, but he soon caught up to my side.
“I assume you wish to depart immediately,” I said.
He eyed my new briskness sidelong, then nodded. “I would, but I cannot ride, fight or withstand travelling in the state I am in now.”
“I can heal you, if you let me lay hands,” I offered, though the idea rippled with unease. “You could be on the road by the morning.”
“Absolutely not,” Lancelot replied. “The taint of your devilry would bring about my eternal shame.”
I was grateful for his swipe, bringing us back to the safety of our antipathy. I smiled, baring teeth; he regarded me with a handsome hauteur.
“Bring me food and I will eat it,” he said. “Give me access to the gardens and I will regain my breath and muscle. I will restore my own strength, then leave. Thereafter, never again, Morgan le Fay.”
I didn’t know what he was vowing against, but accepted it nonetheless as we reached the entrance of his former prison. The gyrfalcon sat calm on her perch, resplendent as the moon. She gave the knight a savage glare.
“Then we are concluded, Lancelot du Lac,” I said. “Fly away home.”
*
It did not take my guest long to find his way back to strength.
According to reports, he kept his pledge and ate well, exercised and schooled his horse in the nearby cornflower meadow. He transformed from a despairing jumble of bones, determined to die in a strange bed, back into the champion knight he had sworn to remain.
I was there for none of it. When Sir Lancelot of the Lake armed himself and rode out of Belle Garde through the northern valley, it was only from the word of others—and the slightest shiver of absence across my senses—that I learned he was gone.