Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
I awoke the next morning in a pool of sweat. Something was off. I could feel it in the air. My first thought was Elinor. Had she taken a turn for the worse overnight? As I dressed and washed my face, Galehaut stirred.
“Is something wrong?” he asked me.
I told him I did not know. I just had a strange feeling.
“I do too,” he said.
We went downstairs. I was relieved to see Elinor was awake and nibbling on a bit of cheese.
Mazoe sat by her side. Her cottage was embellished with cockles, whelks, shark teeth, whale bone, bits of carapace and other treasures that washed ashore.
She had dark brown skin and a long neck adorned with topaz beads.
“Glitonea would like to speak with you,” she said. “Please go to her cottage.”
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“Glitonea will explain.”
My stomach dropped. The other descendants never asked for my audience, especially not Glitonea, the stoniest of the seven. Galehaut and I made our way to the door.
“No,” Mazoe said to Galehaut. “Not you. Glitonea will wish to speak to Lancelot alone.”
I trekked across the beach, heart pounding. Glitonea’s cottage was the most imposing home on the island, a tall brute structure enswathed in pines. At dusk she could be seen circling the roof, looking out to sea like a hawk-eyed sentry.
I knocked and she bid me entry. I had not stepped foot inside her home in a very long time, but it was as dim and smokey as I remembered.
The walls were adorned in vibrant maroon tapestries, which lent the room a shrunken feel.
A family crest, inlaid with rubies, hung above the fireplace, where a spit of meat was roasting.
“Sit,” she instructed.
I did as I was told with mounting dread.
I knew what Glitonea was about to say. Even if Elinor’s health improved, my grandmother did not have many years left.
The sisterhood urgently needed to secure an heir, and that duty fell to me.
I would have to leave the island and begin the lengthy process of courtship and marriage.
There was no time to waste. They’d probably send me on the next boat. I felt numb.
Glitonea assessed me with a neutral expression. She’d likely volunteered to deliver the news, no doubt delighting in my imminent departure. Viviana had probably asked her, unable to bear it herself. As she poured an herbal drink, her arms reminded me of a swan taking flight.
“I assume you know why I called you here,” she said, voice like a cold stream.
I nodded, my throat too dry to speak.
“You are wondering where she is.”
“Where who is?”
Was she talking about my future wife? Had even this dimension of my life been prearranged?
She gave me a confused look. “You did not know that Viviana left?”
I shook my head, trying to parse.
“Left? No.”
“Do you not feel the sinking?”
I grabbed my throat, suddenly understanding.
That off-kilter throb I woke up with, the foreboding pull in my lungs.
I’d felt it before. Whenever Viviana departed, say for Sorelois, the energy around the island would spiral and sink.
Her absence manifested as a taut thrum in my chest. I’d been too scattered to identify it.
“I do feel it,” I said. “But I did not know she was leaving. Where did she go?”
Glitonea’s cheeks were thin and sharp and as she sipped her drink the severe angles of her face unnerved me.
“We are hoping Elinor will recover, but we need to prepare for the inevitable. Viviana has returned to Benoic. She is settling Elinor’s affairs. There is a bit of land that is not under Claudas’s control. Joyous Guard. It will be yours.”
I was too stunned to speak.
“While she is gone, your training will continue. You will still have your lessons with Bagotta and Lirius. I am supposed to be in charge of your studies, but I have little interest in teaching you. I’m sure you and the giantess’s son can manage on your own?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said, thin-voiced. “I just… I find it strange that Viviana left so abruptly. She must have departed in the middle of the night.”
Glitonea’s ruby rings clacked against the table. Her brown hair was pulled into a tight bun.
“Viviana did not tell you because she feared you’d try to accompany her.”
“I would have,” I agreed. “If Joyous Guard is mine as you say, I should go there.”
“You are a guest on this island,” she snapped, “and the sisterhood determines your fate here. Not the other way around.”
“Yes, of course. I am grateful for all you’ve provided me. I will not go to Joyous Guard until my training is done.”
“When your training is done you will go where we say.” She stood abruptly, extended her hand to the door. “Thank you for visiting me, Lancelot. Please tell Mazoe I will relieve her at midday.”
I crossed her great room in a daze. She called to me at the threshold.
“For that sinking pull in your chest? I suggest a draft of elderberry.”
We spent the morning in the high meadows, squaring off on horseback.
I took Glitonea’s advice and prepared an elderberry draft.
It alleviated my symptoms, but I remained distracted.
The last time Viviana had journeyed to Benoic, she’d brought me home in an infant’s cloth band.
I feared her journey would be equally upending.
That I had some land in my name felt exhilarating until I envisioned the life I’d live there.
A wife, no doubt. A daughter who would leave us to fulfill her fate among the sisterhood.
An isolated war, waged against King Claudas and the rising tide of Rome.
I donned my chain mail, positioned my shield and spear. A soupy fog snaked along the clearing. As I charged at Galehaut across the tiltyard, I tried to block out thoughts of my future, but I was unable to focus. I dropped my blunted lance before we even crossed lines.
“Galehaut, go practice your sword thrusts for a moment,” called Bagotta. “I need to speak with Lancelot.”
Under her instruction my riding skills had improved, but I was still awkward atop a horse, especially in mail. In session after session, Galehaut easily unseated me. I was beginning to doubt I could live up to Merlin’s prophecy. Even my trusted horse Blake seemed to neigh with frustration.
Bagotta stood with her arms folded. The dense fog eddied up to her knees. I’d taken my fair share of falls and scrapes, but nothing felt worse than the glower of her disappointment. I braced for the tongue-lashing I knew I deserved.
“This isn’t working,” she said. “You’re not focusing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not looking for apologies,” she said. “I’m trying to understand. You have a gift when it comes to sparring. But when you get atop Blake, it all falls apart.”
I forced myself to hold her gaze. I wanted her to know that I took this seriously. But I feared that at any second she might throw her arms up and call an end to our training altogether.
“The problem is not your technique,” she said. “The problem is your heart.”
Instinctively I clutched my chest.
“A knight must have two hearts,” she continued. “One should be soft as wax. The other harder than a diamond. You’ve always had a heart of wax.”
“How do I”—I fumbled for the right phrasing—“fix that?”
Her mouth curved into a wry smile. She was less frustrated with me than bemused. “Any number of things can harden your heart. Betrayal, loss, guilt. Love, most especially. Love is a volatile thing. It can cleave you in two.”
I knew she was talking about Brunor, the husband who left her.
I’d yet to experience love like that, but I knew of other cleavings.
I’d felt a loneliness that stalled my breath.
I’d lain awake, too afraid to live but even more scared to die.
She looked across the field, where Galehaut was occupied with his sparring and footwork.
Lowering her voice, she said, “My son will be a fine knight, but he comes at it from a different place. Look at him, the way he moves so methodically. Fighting is an exercise in his head. But you are different,” she said. “You are like me.”
Bagotta was swift and strong and commanded a room with her presence. She was great and wanted us to be great. I was nothing like her. I didn’t possess even a drop of her confidence. I told her as much.
“Here’s the trick.” She leaned down to my level and whispered, “You don’t need it.”
“Don’t need confidence?”
“You don’t need any kind of mindset in particular. You just need to activate what’s flowing through you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Try this. Close your eyes. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
I pressed my eyes shut and answered truthfully. “I feel silly.”
“And what else?”
“And embarrassed for dropping my lance.”
“That’s better. What else are you feeling?”
“I want to impress you. I want to do well, and I wish I were better.”
“So there’s a gap between how you want to perform and how you are performing. Keep your eyes closed just a bit longer. Do you feel that tension? Do you feel the shape of it?”
I did as she said, focusing on that feeling of inadequacy.
“It feels like… like a wedge within me.”
“Good. Now reach into it.”
“What!”
“Just trust me.”
I kept visualizing the wedge, an angry pink. I could see my hands reaching down and grabbing it. I couldn’t dislodge it, but a strange thing was happening.
“It’s… it’s coming apart in my hands?” I said.
The wedge was like warm honey. It stuck to my fingers in long dripping threads. As I dug deeper, I could feel its pink strands diffusing through my chest and radiating down my limbs. It was the oddest sensation. Invigorating, uncomfortably sharp and bright with intensity.
“Do you feel it?” Bagotta asked. “The redness?”
“It’s pink.”