Chapter 35 #2
By the afternoon, it had become clear—Lancelot truly wanted to paint.
After receiving the pigments and several brushes through the bars, the knight went to work on the walls until the light waned and he ran out of his third helping of colours.
When Tressa went in, she reported him as leaning dazed against the wall beside what he had done.
He barely acknowledged her when she put down his evening meal, but as she left, she saw him dive for the food, snatching it up in handfuls as if he hadn’t eaten for days.
“He didn’t even pause to wash the paint from his hands,” she said, as the three of us sat over our own wine in Alys’s physic garden. “The paintings so far are good. He seems to possess a fair amount of skill.”
I rolled my eyes. “What endeavour exists that Sir Lancelot isn’t brilliant at?”
“What are the paintings of?” Alys asked.
“I didn’t have long to look,” Tressa said.
“There was a crowned man and lady holding a baby, then a castle besieged by armed men. The last painting seemed to show a child alone in a dark forest, beside a riverbank. He had sketched the next image in charcoal, ready for paint. A robed woman with long, flowing hair, standing in the river.”
I shook my head. “Not a river. A lake.”
And not just any woman; when Lancelot began to paint the next day, her hair would need a pigment of red mixed with gold, and no amount of skill would ever quite capture its sunset shade.
“The Lady Ninianne,” Alys said.
I nodded. “Waiting to carry her adoptive son off to his destiny. Sir Lancelot has painted the opening scenes to his own life.”
*
To my credit, I cleaved to my self-control for several months.
Spring stretched into summer, with long days and good skies. I spent my time at the lake, and refused to ask Tressa about what my unpredictable prisoner was painting. Only in bad weather did my curiosity threaten my pledge to keep away from Lancelot’s door.
In the end, however, my impulses could not be contained.
When Accolon had been risen a year, and the shifting season brought rains so relentless even I could not banish the clouds, I spent my nights lying in the dark, wakeful and restless.
As the Hunter’s Moon swelled to its fullest, I found myself stealing down the turret steps and through the silent house.
I needed no light to guide my way; nor did I need a key to turn the lock. The door swung open on quiet hinges, and I stepped inside.
The long bedchamber Accolon and I had shared stretched out before me into a profound darkness, air weighted by every joy and intimacy it had seen.
Covertly, I struck my fingers across my palm, and a flame sprung to life, making familiar the shadows: the window seats and fireplace; the rafters blotched with faded birds; the hulking silhouette of the carved oak bed, hangings half drawn.
It felt less like a room than it did an ordeal of emptiness.
But of course, the chamber wasn’t empty, and from the bed came the steady push-pull of arduous breaths.
I had not seen Lancelot since the day he became my prisoner, and in the cast of my light, the sight of him had become astonishing again.
He lay on his front, arms and face still streaked with paint, a dark curl across his brow.
Though he shaved his face every day under Tressa’s supervision, he had let his hair grow until it was lush and untamed.
I brushed the lock back with my fingertip and he did not stir.
I wasn’t sure why I had come, but it could not be for him.
Leaving him to sleep, I went to the wall nearest the door and held up my flaming hand.
True to Tressa’s description, his paintings were good, unexpectedly fine for a man more used to sword strikes and crushing joust opponents.
Then again, Accolon had lived the same knightly life, and there were no hands more artful than his.
At the thought, a column of memories rose up: Accolon’s coin flashing between his fingers; his swift hands lacing—and unlacing—my gowns; his gentle, searching touch on my skin.
What lingered in this place were different from the visions we conjured together at the lake: they were darker, made of loneliness, hovering at my shoulder.
I pushed beyond their grasp and moved on.
The paintings continued with du Lac’s youth—his time in Ninianne’s care, images of his knightly training, lessons and conversations with her, nothing particularly interesting.
Next came the unmistakable golden castle, and a knight in silver on a long, twisting road.
Lancelot—unknighted and hopeful—had come to Camelot.
Smaller images abounded: the young man meeting his peers, embarking upon his first quest, joust and duel of swords. Then came a large portrait of the High King and Queen, resplendent and detailed, the figure of Lancelot prostrate, gazing up at them both.
Other events came and went: knights and ladies; banquets and jousting triumphs; Arthur and Guinevere watching over Lancelot’s feats like gods on Olympus.
One long mural depicted a sliver-blond man marked as “Lord Galehaut,” remarkably tall and handsome as a prince of myth, his importance definitive but unexplained.
Near the end of the paintings, one image presided over the rest: the Queen standing alone before Sir Lancelot. Innocent enough at first glance, except he was no longer kneeling, and they were gazing at one another with a directness he had never depicted before.
My head cleared as though I had been plunged into a stream. Surely he would never display what must come next.
I held the fire up to his newest painting, expecting allusion at most. What I found was more revealing, more dangerous than any image yet. Before me, in vivid detail, were Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot in bed together, embracing, as lovers in adultery.
I recoiled in shock. He had rendered the two of them with such boldness that the revelation felt new to me, a confession daunting in its intimacy, its meaning undeniable.
Lancelot had painted his betrayal of Arthur on my walls.
This was the first material proof of what I had long insisted, enough to convince my doubting brother of their treason ten times over.
Finally, I had Lancelot’s admission, better than if he had put ink to paper.
Camelot’s champion had placed the perfect weapon in my hands, the undeniable means to bring the great golden castle to its knees.
Yet when I looked again, the passion and clarity in his work arrested me in a different way.
No longer did I see a tool for my vengeance, but a message resonating so deeply it was as if he had sketched an allegory beneath the surface, a code alone for me to find.
What Lancelot had done was not to provoke, tempt chaos, or even confess his sins.
Instead, from within his imprisonment, he had found a way to express his deepest pains and sleep easily, whereas I lay awake every night and had once again chained myself with lies.
Lancelot had painted his treason, his guilt and failures for everyone to see, because he understood what I had forgotten: that the only way to be free was to tell the truth.