Chapter 32
Between my shock and Arthur’s ferocity, I found myself obeying his command. With a last look at his folded, hard-breathing body, I let my anger take control and stormed out of the Great Chamber, healing burning so brightly in my senses I could feel it crackling behind my eyes.
The private throne room was empty, a welcome quiet from the noise and conflicting emotions that came from arguing with my brother. I savoured my solitude for a moment, just long enough to note I was wrong, and for Lancelot’s tremendous frame to step into my path.
Masking my shock, I looked up to meet his glower with my own, when another figure stepped out from behind him, distracting me at once.
Yvain, hovering on the dais, a faintly stubborn look on his face.
“Are you…waiting for me?” I asked.
His eyes flicked to Lancelot, standing between us, radiating displeasure. I imagined the insistence it must have taken for my son to defy du Lac’s orders and remain in the room.
Before either of them could speak, a hard roar came through the open doorway—Arthur, protesting against his pain. Lancelot glared at me in horror, then ran into the Great Chamber, leaving me and Yvain alone.
My time in Camelot was running out; I had to take my chances.
I rushed over to him. “Yvain, listen. When you came to Belle Garde, you were right that I was not honest with you, and I should have been,” I said.
“What your uncle will say of me hereafter I don’t know, but you deserve the whole truth.
I want you to have it from my own lips, however difficult it is for me to say. ”
He considered me for a long, doubtful moment, then said, “Tell me.”
Briefly, I wondered if it would make things worse, but it was speak honestly or fail him for eternity.
“I did hate your father,” I said. “For good reason, and he hated me in return. Yes, one dreadful day, I conjured fire in my hand and burned his face when he finally pushed me too far. And when you were eight years old, I came to his bedchamber in Camelot, intending to kill him. It was you who stopped me that night—you caught me with his sword in my hands, and your goodness saved us. I tried to make you forget, and I dearly hope you did.”
He looked stunned, as if he had not remembered, but also did not balk, so I took it as a sign to go on.
“What lay between your father and me was terrible, destructive, and entirely mutual. When he took you away and I didn’t know how to fight it, that was the worst failure I have known.
To contact you meant risking your knighthood, your entire future, and I couldn’t ruin your life, even if it meant never holding you again, or seeing you grow up.
But I will always hate myself for not being able to think my way out of the bind they put me in. ”
My voice hitched, and I fought to go on. “None of this—none of this—means I ever stopped loving you.”
As I spoke, Yvain’s face drained, his hands dropping loose to his sides as if he was deciding whether or not to stay. I changed the subject before he chose to flee.
“Several years ago, when Lancelot was missing, you escorted a damsel who ran from you, do you remember?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “We stopped to take a rest and when I awoke she had gone.” His eyes widened. “Was that—?”
“It was me, in disguise,” I said. “You were made my escort, and…I just wanted to be in your company, hear you speak, learn more of you. It was weak and dishonest, and I never should have indulged it. That it was done from love is no excuse, and I am sorry.”
A murmur of footsteps and voices sounded beyond the dais door, moving closer.
“All you must know,” I hurried on, “is the belief you held in me was never a mistake. I’m not asking for forgiveness or anything else from you, but please, do not lose that goodness, your willingness to trust, because of my wrongs. Can you promise me that?”
His face shimmered with indecision, lips parted as if he was about to speak.
“Yvain,” came a calm, authoritative voice, drawing our attention.
Arthur stood in the doorway, recovered and standing tall again. He beckoned to my son, his glance at my presence no more than a blink. “Come, sit with me awhile.”
Yvain took one more long look at me, then ducked his head and went to his uncle, vanishing from my sight. It burned in my chest, the deepest of wounds.
I hardly had a chance to feel what had happened before Lancelot emerged from the Great Chamber, hard-jawed and preoccupied. When he saw I was still there, he shut the dais door and rounded on me like a pouncing tiger.
“What did you do?” he demanded. “The King was wracked with pain, furious, refusing all comfort. He could barely look me in the eye.”
My fortitude was already shaken by the day’s battles, my brother’s rejection and Yvain’s departure, and his accusation landed on my rawest nerve.
“You have done this to Arthur, not me,” I snarled. “Every day you are by his side, dishonouring the man who loves you best. His pain lies at your feet.”
“Do not say that,” he warned. “Arthur is my King, my brother-in-arms, my friend. I cannot bear to see him disrupted in any way, especially by the black clouds you bring.”
“Yet you left him to stand here tangling with Morgan le Fay, and will soon ride out.” I smiled malevolently up at him. “What’s the matter, Sir Knight? Are you feeling the need to escape Camelot again?”
Lancelot loomed over me, his annoyance bringing the same dark rush as it always did. My pulse quickened until it aligned with his own racing heartbeat.
“Hear me now,” he said in a low voice. “I love King Arthur. I swore my honour to him and would give my life for his. Your corrupted mischief, and what happened with your slain lover, has plagued a good man for far longer than the dead knight is worthy of. If I could make him forget it all, I would.”
I should have been better armoured, but his mention of Accolon hit me like a blow to the jaw.
“How dare you speak of what you don’t understand,” I snapped.
“Accolon was a loyal knight with a noble heart. Your honour is a twisted lie, your so-called love a treason and an insult. You are not fit to stand in his shadow.”
His look of outrage could have frozen Hell. “I will not discuss honour with you—it is beneath me. If this knight you loved so much was happy to associate with you, then he was never worthy of King Arthur’s favour, much less his grief now.”
I stood incandescent but trembling, anger suffocating in my chest. When I didn’t strike back, Lancelot exhaled crossly and said, “This is finished. I will ensure you leave before I ride out myself.”
“Do not try to escort me,” I said. “I know my way out of this damnable place.”
I hated to obey, and this was not over, but staying within these walls was being trapped in a labyrinth without end. I would never find my freedom until I released myself from this world.
I turned my back on Camelot’s champion and strode away from Arthur’s closed door, past the Council Room, across the jewelled-light atrium and out of the main entrance. In the courtyard, I stopped, looking up at the windows to the King’s Great Chamber. My brother was not watching me leave.
So be it. If Arthur never wanted to see me again, he would have his wish, but in turn, I had no choice but to make him feel my absence. Morgan le Fay would leave Camelot and never come back, but I refused to go quietly.
*
I was half a mile away from the city and waiting beside a wellspring just off the road when Sir Lancelot rode past me on a huge grey horse, armour and lance strapped across his mount’s flanks.
As I had guessed from his fraught restlessness, he had wasted no time in cutting himself loose from Camelot.
Upon seeing him, the plan that had been forming in my mind hardened and shone, as diamonds do in the earth’s dark embrace. This era of war had all begun with a punishment from Arthur; if I must let Camelot go, I would end our time with a punishment of my own.
I had promised never to use the liar’s arts of Merlin again, so instead I sent the magpies off after the lone knight, following at a distance until they settled on a branch deep in a woodland glade, overlooking a tiny chapel. Sir Lancelot had stopped to pray.
I entered the nave on silent feet. At the far end, Lancelot knelt at a simple stone altar with his back to me, hands clasped together in prayer.
As I advanced, his broad shoulders stiffened slightly, as if he felt my presence up the back of his neck.
Still, he did not look back, but ducked his head and spoke to the Lord.
I glided closer, listening to his deep, courtly tones intoning in perfect church Latin.
He said the usual things: giving thanks for his blessed existence; asking God’s grace to shine upon his travels and quest; begging protection for those he loved—virtuous words masking my approaching footsteps until I was close enough to touch him.
With a flourish of my hand, I swept a glittering charm over his bowed form, anointing the great du Lac like the saint he believed he was.
His voice slurred, halting in the middle of his prayer, handsome head swinging towards the altar in a dead sleep.
I caught hold of his hair and pulled him upright, cradling a hand under his chiselled jaw.
“You should be grateful, Sir Lancelot,” I said to his slumbering face. “I saved you from breaking your pretty nose.”
His weight pressed against my torso and I savoured it, watching his dark lashes twitch shadows across his impossible face. I could never tire of looking at him, but soon I would give it all up for good.