Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
On my first night away from the Isle of Women, I had learned of the grail and saved a merking. I had celebrated Beltane and died a perfect little death in the woods.
And now I had cousins.
I stopped at the threshold, took a deep breath.
I had barely interacted with other men, let alone male kin, let alone male kin long presumed dead.
I reminded myself what they had endured, an early life completely at odds with my own.
Surely they’d be volatile, sharp-elbowed, battered down by captivity.
Surely they’d resent me—the rescued one.
I would not fault them for this. I would understand.
I flattened the rumples in my tunic and opened the door.
There they were, sitting on either side of Elinor.
I lingered for a moment in the kitchen threshold, taking in their reunion.
Elinor was in the midst of some story about their mother, Evaine, involving a temple and a flock of peacocks.
I watched as they huddled close, soaking up her words, each holding her hand.
Elinor was more animated than I’d seen her in days, no doubt overjoyed at their arrival.
It dawned on me what this must have meant to her.
She had endured unfathomable loss, but her grandchildren were somehow alive and reunited.
The sight nearly brought me to tears. They needed her, I could tell. And she them.
Elinor caught sight of me in the threshold and fell silent.
My cousins turned, and for the first time I got a real look at them.
They had whittled cheekbones and pallid complexions—but the family resemblance was immediate.
We had the same pronounced nose and blue eyes, same matching cowlick swooping across the forehead.
Bors had darker features, broader shoulders and a deep gash running from his temple to his collarbone, which I speculated was the fresh work of a dagger.
Lionel, who was a couple years younger, had lighter hair like mine and a mischievous face.
He seemed the more animated of the two, and was the first to stand and approach me.
“How is it possible?” he said, holding my shoulders. “You are somehow our age.”
Bors came up and touched my face. His hand was callused and cold. “We were boys of six and eight,” he said. “You were in our aunt’s womb. I felt you kick in her stomach. Is it really you?”
“It is,” Viviana assured them. “This is Elaine’s son.”
Bors patrolled around me, as if to confirm my existence from every angle. Did he take me for a freak?
“You look like her,” he said. “You look like Aunt Elaine.”
Aunt Elaine. The easy intimacy of this. My mother had kissed their foreheads, bounced them on her knee. On humid afternoons she had lulled them to sleep in the crook of her arm. I felt a sharp lash of envy.
“Do you know of any good walls?” asked Lionel.
“Walls?”
“Ideally a hard rock. Smooth.”
“I…”
“Do you play paume?”
“Paume?”
“It’s a game. With a ball. You hit the ball against a wall with your hand.”
“I… no… I’ve never heard of such a game. Why?”
“Why?” He let out a harried laugh. “Because… do you not want to play it?”
“Well, maybe if you show me?”
“That is what I was hoping you’d say! I am the greatest paume player. The monks in our city invented the game and all the villagers used to play and even though you grew up quickly I remain your older cousin and as such I must be the one to teach you how to play.”
At this, he threw his arms around me. Bors joined him, and I flinched at the immediacy of their affection, their easy instinct for kin.
Lionel pulled back to regard me. “You are much more handsome than Bors,” he said. “And nearly as handsome as me.”
Bors turned to Galehaut. “My brother believes every maiden is in love with him.”
“Ahh, they are, though.” Lionel closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, cackling.
“Even the canine variety,” Bors shot back.
“Dogs love me.”
“Because they think you’re one of them.”
Lionel cocked his head towards Galehaut, who was standing behind me. “I’ve been known to lift my leg when I piss.”
We burst out laughing, and the laughter felt like stepping into a cone of light.
“You’ll have to forgive us,” said Bors. “We are not always this bubbleheaded. But it’s not every day you meet both your grandmother and long-lost cousin.” Turning to Galehaut, he added, “Or your cousin’s fellow knight in training.”
They slapped Galehaut on the back, sweeping him into the circle. An instant warmth circulated between us.
“I can’t stop looking at you!” said Lionel, gripping my shoulders. “It is like seeing a ghost. I am not sure whether to be happy or cry.”
As boys, Bors and Lionel had been taken in the siege that killed their parents. They were raised alongside Claudas’s son, Dorin, a moody, dimwitted prince who chewed with his mouth open.
“We were educated as any noble-born children would be,” Bors explained over supper. “We learned Latin, arithmetic, falconry and swordcraft. We prayed to their one god and were baptized in their church.”
“For a time, it was not even that bad,” Lionel said.
“I was younger and did not really understand what had happened.
I only knew that our parents were gone and we had a new life.
Dorin was bothersome, but easily outsmarted.
All we had to do was shower him with outlandish praise.
Oh, Dorin, how smart you are with numbers.
What great archery skills you possess. What glorious toes you have.
“He believed the thing about the toes,” confirmed Bors.
“It was all tolerable until Dorin got himself killed the other week. Could you pass the stew?”
Lionel was quick to make light of a dark chapter. But I wondered, as he poured more stew into his trencher, if he’d ever truly mourned for his parents. I wondered if he hadn’t felt some brotherly affection for Dorin as well.
“Despite what he believed, Dorin was not good at most things, especially riding,” Bors said, taking another helping of the turnips. Both Bors and Lionel were switch thin and noticeably hungry. They washed down their suppers with sloshing cups of wine.
“He was trampled by his own horse. They blamed us. Said we spooked the mare. We were going to be hanged. Viviana rescued us just in time.”
“And here we are,” added Lionel, though for a moment he seemed to be somewhere else. I believed a part of him grieved for Dorin and missed Claudas’s castle. His feelings were complicated. So were mine.
Claudas had killed our parents. But he let my cousins live.
Despite what they’d endured, Bors and Lionel were eager to hear about our training. Could we joust, could we swing a poleaxe? Could we properly deflect an attack with a sword?
Yes, we told them. Yes, we could joust, yes, we could wield many weapons. Yes, we knew how to fend off various kinds of strikes.
“Join us in the clearing tomorrow,” Bagotta said. “I shall assess your skills. We have two weeks yet. That is plenty of time to teach you what I know.”
Two weeks. A lump formed in my throat.
“You would instruct us?” Lionel asked.
“It would be my honor. Anyone who survived so long under Claudas must be resourceful.” She took a bit of lemon tart. “And our horses do not spook so easily.”
After supper, the four of us lingered in the great room. Bors and Lionel infused the cottage with a giddy energy, and it was enough to distract me from Galehaut and Bagotta’s impending departure. We yearned to know everything about them, and they us.
“What are the new ways like?” Galehaut asked.
“They are not much different from the old ways,” Bors said, with a laugh. “Except instead of many gods they have many saints. And instead of magic they have miracles.”
“What is a miracle?” I asked.
“It is when, in the darkest hour, something wonderful happens unexpectedly.”
“This must be a miracle then,” I said.
“It surely is a miracle,” said Bors. “But it’s also the result of Viviana’s magic.
Claudas is fuming, I am sure. The old ways are a threat to men like him.
His power will always pale in comparison to someone like Viviana.
Which is why we must restore our family’s land and protect the old ways,” said Bors.
“Imagine it!” said Lionel. “It will be glorious. We’ll depose Claudas, and I shall take a wife and fill our castle with many children. Though I hope my sons are not so ill-endowed as their uncle Bors.”
Bors playfully smacked his brother across the head. “I’m a grower,” he said, and we laughed harder.
We kept talking, kept laughing late into the night. Amid the ribald jokes and long-winded stories, the shared dreams of glory and fears of what lay ahead, a sharp clarity pierced through me.
Bors and Lionel, I realized, could have daughters. They could extend Elinor’s line.
In rescuing them, Viviana had liberated me.
By the time we retired, it was nearly dawn. Alone in our room, Galehaut seemed troubled.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
He folded his clothes, arranged them in a pile. He would not meet my gaze.
“You do not like them,” I said.
“Bors and Lionel? I adore them. I am glad they are here. And happy you have kin.”
“You do not seem happy.”
He flopped onto the mattress, rested his hands across his chest.
“Because you will leave with them.”
I sat at the foot of the bed and grabbed his leg. Two weeks from now, at the next half moon, I would meet the sisterhood in the hazel grove. On that evening they would give me my instructions. Bors and Lionel would receive theirs, too.
“Where I go next is up to the sisterhood.”
“Of course. Leave your fate to them.”
I recoiled at his words. He was looking to pick a fight, it seemed. I struck back.
“And yours to Cymidei.”
He sat up on the bed. “You know I’d choose you.”
“And I the same.”
“Then let’s do it. Let’s leave tonight.”
I gave a nervous laugh. “And go where?”
“Does it matter? We’d be together.” A desperation threaded his voice. He’d gotten ahead of himself. “No, you just met your cousins. This time with them is important… I just…”
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
He rolled onto his side and pulled me into him. What if we did leave? What if we shrugged off our disparate fates and carved out a new life together? It would mean betraying our duties, breaking our vows. It would likely mean parting with my cousins forever. But we would be free.
We lay like that for some time, eyes closed but wide awake, both of us working through the same intractable thoughts.
He pressed his mouth to my ear, warm breath tingling my spine.
“Lancelot,” he whispered. “I think I have a plan.”