Chapter 12
Twelve
It was not quite camaraderie. But the newfound connection between us signified a welcome thawing.
In the library Galehaut now sat next to me, often interrupting our studies to pose questions big and small.
He was curious about everything. Ancient philosophers, great wars, mountains that spewed fire.
But he was particularly interested in the island itself.
He asked me about the precious stones that filled the stream.
Opals, rubies, moonstones, topaz, diamonds, emeralds.
“Viviana always wears sapphire,” he said. “Each descendant seems to favor a particular stone.”
“Is that unusual?” I asked.
“Quite,” he said. “I’m sure it must have to do with their magic.”
He also wanted to know about the blue lights that blinked through the trees.
Were they water sprites? Fairies? Yes, but they did not exist in our realm, only their blinking shadows.
The northern grottos, had I explored them?
Of course. And I would show him the glowing cave where the sisterhood performed certain rituals.
“How does their magic work?” he asked me, a leechbook spread between us.
I told him the truth. I did not know. As men, we were not privy to the sisterhood’s clandestine ways.
“Even you?”
I bristled. “Am I not a man?”
“You are different than most men I know.”
His compliments, if they could be considered such, always came with the knife-prick of truth.
“Most men you know are giants.”
“Not my father.”
He was opening up to me, too, a slow trickle.
His Irish father, Brunor, I’d learned, was once the ruler of a lesser chiefdom.
His marriage with Bagotta brokered an alliance between their families.
Their love was rapturous, blinding, but it had left little room for Galehaut and his sister.
Before they were born, Bagotta conceived and lost seven times.
Those years took their toll. Then Brunor left Giant’s Island and never came back.
“He met another woman,” Galehaut said. “They live in Northumberland now. I have not seen him since I was ten.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I have plenty of friends. I don’t miss him at all.”
“But a father is different than a friend.”
“I have uncles, too. One of whom lives in Camelot.”
“Camelot!”
I’ve been there! I almost added, thinking of my lake vision. Though we’d grown closer, instinct told me to keep the lake sword a secret.
“Is there any other? My paternal uncle Dinadan is a member of the Round Table. My father attempted to join but they wouldn’t have him.”
“Have you met Dinadan?” I asked.
“Well, no,” he said, shifting in his seat. “We do not associate with my father’s side. But it hardly matters. To me, Brunor might as well be dead.” He caught himself, remembering his audience, a fatherless foundling.
“I do not mean to complain,” he said, resting his hand on mine. “I am lucky.”
His hand lingered a second longer. Our eyes met.
“So am I.”
Our sparring sessions were changing me. For the first time in my life, I genuinely excelled at something, and the bright hum of competence stirred old dreams. I was eager to learn everything I could about knighthood, both from Bagotta and our library’s many books.
But I also craved the knowledge of the lake sword.
Viviana and Elinor remained tight-lipped about its mysteries, but I sensed the sword had important lessons to teach me.
I returned to the lake that night, hoping to catch another glimpse of Camelot.
Under the water I gripped the hilt and waited.
The memories took longer to activate, and for a moment I feared I’d drained it completely.
By the time the light burst forth, my lungs were fire.
The bubbles emerged in a thin trickle, not quite easing my need for air.
The image this time was faded and translucent. A woman in a fur-lined stole was walking into an unfathomably large hall, illuminated with lamps and candles. Stained-glass windows painted the floor and held back the cold.
This must be winter, I thought. A season I had only heard of in poems and tales.
The woman was walking up the aisle towards a massive dais, upon which stood the largest circular table I had ever seen.
My breath caught. The Round Table. I’d dreamed of this assembly my entire life, and now it was right in front of me.
The table itself was a thick ring, with space in the middle for speakers and entertainers and attendants to ferry food and drink.
I’d expected a solemn assembly, a space befitting the Table’s stringent code of chivalry.
But the dais before me was a hive of chaos.
Male and female knights were scattered about, some standing and yelling, others ducking beneath the table to gather in urgent huddles.
I trailed the woman up to the dais. I could only see her from behind. She had long golden hair, and she was flanked by two other women. As she stepped onto the platform, a group of knights pulled her into their conversation. When she turned to face them, I knew immediately who she was.
Guinevere, did you hear the news?
Her eyes were green and her face was diamond-shaped.
She possessed a striking, ghostly beauty, but it left me hollow.
No, I realized. Her beauty left her hollow.
I couldn’t access her thoughts like I had with my mother and Arthur, but I could feel the battering of her heart.
Ribs like an oil press. Wild flares of dread pulsing through her veins.
Whatever revelation had activated the Round Table—she already knew it. She was barely listening, and I could only catch snippets.
—All three objects. Disappeared.
—Were they taken?
—We don’t know.
—The Romans, if they find—
—The grail maiden reported them lost—
—A near-fatal wound that—
She looked across the table and locked eyes with Arthur. He was older now, but still young. Broad-shouldered and striking, with dark circles beneath his storm-cloud eyes. He gave Guinevere the slightest nod, as if to say, Go ahead.
As she ducked between chairs and walked to the center, the table went quiet. Knights took their seats and turned to face her.
With a grim smile she said, I gather Arthur has shared the news. Here is what we’re going to do—
The vision evaporated, the sword went dark. Suddenly aware of the strain on my lungs, I burst to the surface, gasping.
In the stories I’d read, Queen Guinevere was Arthur’s equal in intellect and stratagem, the daughter of Roman royalty.
Her marriage with Arthur established a tenuous truce that still held to this day.
She was revered for her beauty and for the alluring sway she held over everyone.
But on the page, she had always felt unknowable to me, too poised, too perfect.
Now I understood the writhing dread that ensnared her.
She carried a darkness the world did not see. In moments of crisis, she drew from it.
All three objects. Disappeared. I wondered what they were. I wondered what the Romans had to do with it.
I wondered, most of all, who the grail maiden was.
Elinor seemed tired. In our music lessons she struggled to go from standing to sitting.
“Here, I’ve got you,” said Galehaut, helping her onto the bench in the temple.
He was good like this, instinctively anticipating the needs of others, tidying and doing little chores without being asked.
I noticed how, after a parched bout of sparring, a cup of water might materialize for me.
I’d reach the stables, only to find Blake brushed and saddled.
Galehaut would raise a dandelion to his eye, peering through its matrix of soft, cloudlike seeds.
You need this, he always said, with a wink.
The luck. Each time I felt an unfamiliar tug, something like pain but not quite.
Midway through our fiddle lesson, Elinor dozed off. Galehaut and I smirked and kept playing the instrument until she shuddered awake, blurting out praise.
“Yes, nicely done, Galehaut,” she said, before falling immediately back to sleep.
“She likes you,” I said.
“It is mutual.” He flipped the music to a new page. After a time he added, “I had a grandmother once. Bagotta’s mother. She died when I was very young. I mostly remember her confined to bed. You are fortunate. To have so much time.”
Did I have time? I wasn’t sure. I stayed on the Isle of Women at the pleasure of the sisterhood. When my training was done, and I parted with Elinor, it might be the last time I saw her. No amount of time would ever be enough.
“If I am fortunate, then why do you give me so many dandelions?”
“Maybe you are lucky because I give them to you.”
“And when you leave, my luck shall evaporate.”
His expression deflated. I’d breached an invisible boundary. My cheeks flushed.
After a time he said, “Where will you go? After your training?”
The question wrapped around me like a snake. I’d kept the sword’s visions, and my growing dreams of Camelot, to myself.
“I suppose I’ll return to Benoic, if the sisterhood deems it.”
“And you’ll take back your family’s kingdom?”
“I suppose.”
“And you will be king.”
“Yes. I would be.”
“Would be? You are.”
I looked to the burning votives, evading his gaze. “I am very far from a king.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “I am not trying to praise you,” he said. “I am stating a fact.”
His brown eyes pierced me and I felt the same tug in my stomach. He removed his hand, and I continued to feel the imprint of his touch.
“King Claudas still controls my family’s land,” I said.
“Then you shall vanquish him.”
“Perhaps with your help.” I smiled.
Galehaut looked down at his hands. “Can I tell you something?”
A surge of energy flowed through me. I loved when he confided in me.
“Yes. Anything.”
“I do not wish to join you in Benoic,” he said.
The stab of his words. I sat up straight.
“Right, of course. You’ll return to Giant’s Island.”
“That is the plan, yes,” he said in a low voice. “But even if I go elsewhere, I have little interest in knighthood.”
The confession knocked me back. He was a young man of able body and noble birth. He had the prowess, the character, and now the training. How could he not aspire to knighthood?
“I don’t understand.”
He stood up and paced, arms resting on the back of his head.
“Everyone expects me to be a knight. And I do think I could be a good one. Perhaps not as great as you, but a good one nonetheless. But I don’t like the violence.
I just want to explore the world, and help people. I don’t want to harm them.”
“What if you encounter a threat?”
“What? Like a dragon?” He laughed. “Then I’ll slay it. But even then, I would probably feel a little bad about it. Wouldn’t you?”
I thought back to the fox, how he’d jump into my arms sometimes and I could feel his little lungs expanding, feel the thin layer of skin that separated us. He had not come around for a long time.
“I would,” I admitted.
Galehaut’s mouth cracked into a broad smile. It flooded me with light.
The moment, however, was short-lived.
Elinor collapsed.