Chapter 40 #2
“If you don’t kill her first,” Lancelot spat. And he didn’t even know what Gawain and Vera knew, that there was no outcome where she emerged unscathed.
“It doesn’t make sense to start with the queen. The risk is high. It’s far too high.” Gawain appealed directly to Arthur. “There is the likelihood, perhaps the certainty—”
“Gawain,” Merlin warned.
Gawain didn’t stop. He spoke louder. “That further intervention will cause her mind to break. She might survive but wouldn’t have enough brain function left to swallow food.”
“Enough!” Merlin slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair.
Gawain’s characteristic scowl was nothing to the wrath that marred his features. “What good would it do if she dies before she can tell us what happened? It’s prudent we go to the mages first and only push Guinevere’s mind as a last resort.”
Merlin began arguing, but Arthur held up a hand. “We’re going to the mages.”
It was decided. Merlin and Gawain, Arthur, Lancelot, Vera, and two other soldiers.
“I think we should also bring one more knight with Guinevere coming,” Lancelot said. “Percival would be best.”
“No. Percival will stay as king regent,” Arthur said. “We’ll bring Tristan.”
Lancelot nearly hid the glimmer of a scowl, but Vera saw it. “Why not Randall? Or Marian?”
Arthur shook his head. “I want them in Camelot. Tristan is the right choice.” He didn’t elaborate; it was not up for discussion. Lancelot stiffly crossed his arms over his chest, displeased.
They would leave this evening under the cover of darkness.
Arthur and Vera went straight to their quarters to pack.
She shoved her running trainers and socks into a rucksack, deliberating what to say to him.
The memories were right there. She’d had a real memory.
The rest couldn’t be far behind. But that brought up another issue entirely that Vera hadn’t had time to reckon with: she truly was Guinevere.
Before she could work up the nerve to speak, Percival and Tristan were at the door. Percival dutifully reported the city’s status: calmer than before but fortifying itself in preparations for the barrage of refugees.
“They responded to Percival well,” Tristan added, clearly impressed. “Almost how they’d respond to you.”
Percival shrugged off the compliment. “What news from the mages?” he asked.
Arthur was honest. There was plenty he couldn’t say, which Percival readily accepted. He only balked when Arthur relayed their travel plans. “You’ll stay in Camelot,” he told the young knight. “I need you to serve as king regent.”
Percival drew back before his brow furrowed, making his scar the dominant feature of his handsome face. “The queen should be in charge,” he said.
Arthur shook his head. “She’s coming with us.”
“Why?” Percival asked. It was a fair question, and there were plenty of reasons. Because she wanted to, for one. Because Arthur knew the safest place would be with him and Lancelot. And because if something happened with her mind, they needed mages there.
Instead, Vera said, “I want to go,” at the same time that Arthur said, “I will not leave her.”
To her surprise, that was justification enough for Percival.
“Tristan,” Arthur looked to him, and he dutifully stepped forward, “I need you to come on the road as the queen’s guard.”
Vera jolted. She hadn’t realized that was the additional knight’s purpose.
“I’d be honored, Your Majesty,” he said, his eyes lighting up.
“Arthur, I don’t know how to act as king,” Percival said.
“Of course you do.” Arthur crossed the room to the desk.
He collected a stack of parchments and handed them to a stunned Percival before he paused thoughtfully.
“I’ll show you a few things. Come on.” Vera began following him to the door.
Arthur stopped her. His eyes flicked to Tristan for the length of a blink before resting on her. “Stay. Finish packing.”
“I—” she stammered. “All right.”
“Should Tristan—?” Percival began.
“No,” Arthur said. “He can stay.”
Their footsteps echoed down the hall, leaving her and Tristan alone.
Unsure what else to do, she resumed packing while he wandered over to the window.
Its shutter was latched open, and a pleasant breeze slipped through the rods.
Tristan grabbed one of the bars and gave it a sturdy shake.
Vera hadn’t realized she’d stopped, a travel cloak mid-fold between her hands, to watch him.
There was something she was missing about Tristan.
She was right on the edge of it and couldn’t break through, couldn’t clear the last cobweb obscuring the memory.
Vera clamped her eyes shut in an effort to focus.
She dropped to sit on the bed behind her.
“Gwen?” Tristan said warily. Vera let her eyes flutter open. He was already closing the space between them. “Are you frightened?”
“I’m—” She cast about for the right words, but her head spun. She was so close to it.
Tristan pulled a chair over and sat, facing her. He smiled grimly. “I know. It hasn’t felt like this since the wars. It’ll be all right.” He rubbed her arm above the elbow, and there it was.
Vera remembered.
There was no dramatic moment of recollection, no reliving the scenes like in the sensory tub.
One second, she’d have never thought to touch this dusty corner of her mind, and the next, Tristan and so many things about him were just …
there as if they always had been. There was a whole childhood of memories with the man in front of her.
Their parents had one tutor who taught both of them.
Tristan had shown Vera how to hang upside down from a tree branch by her knees, and she’d gotten him into a world of trouble when they started a midsummer bonfire that nearly set his neighbor’s barley field aflame.
Between two lifetimes of growing up, Tristan was the dearest childhood friend she’d ever had.
So many years ago, on a rainy summer day in Tristan’s father’s barn, he had been her first kiss.
Sour, salty, or sweet. It was a game they played when one’s eyes were closed, and the other was meant to surprise with a bite of food, and they’d laugh together when it shocked the tastebuds.
They took it in turns, and it was Tristan’s turn to keep his eyes shut.
Vera was fourteen, and the tension had been rising between them for months.
Years, really. She had decided hours before that today would be the day.
When Vera had filled his lips with her own rather than the sweet cake between her fingers, Tristan’s lips joined the dance.
But it didn’t end there. And their fathers’ plans that they should marry weren’t merely advantageous; they were kind.
Tristan and Vera had been in love. The missing years she hadn’t been able to reach before flooded in.
Flashes of joy, brushing hands beneath tablecloths at banquets, dances when he held her a little too tightly, stolen kisses when they thought they were being sneaky behind their parents’ or the servants’ backs, but everyone had known.
And she remembered the day it all ended when she met him in that same barn.
This time, it was a perfect sunny day. The light found each chink and crack in the wood-slatted wall and lit Tristan and Vera in uneven stripes.
She cried as she told him she’d chosen to marry the king.
He’d begged her not to and painted the story of the life that Tristan and Guinevere could have together.
It would have been a good life, a great one.
She’d known what she was giving up, but she also knew it was best for the kingdom …
that bringing her father’s lands and troops (Tristan among them) would make it all possible to build the new dream of a nation.
Tristan had even ridden with their party the whole journey to Camelot, not yet having given up that Guinevere might change her mind after she met Arthur and that he could whisk her away. But then he met Arthur, and Tristan came to her that night.
That time, it was him who told Vera through tears that she was right, because Tristan had seen the light in Arthur that everyone else saw, too.
He’d even traveled the distance from his home in the north after the wars. Arthur had sent for him when the original Guinevere was at her lowest, barely able to rise from the bed. Tristan sat by her side for days, but it made no difference to her.
“I regret ever leaving,” Tristan said. It brought Vera out of her remembering. His gaze darted to the window. “I left, and then you fell.” Sorrow marred his handsome face.
“That wasn’t your fault,” Vera said. That wasn’t what had happened to the Guinevere he’d known and loved. But she couldn’t tell him that.
“Are you … happy with him?” Tristan asked, not daring to look at her.
“Yes,” Vera said, and it wasn’t a lie.
“I’m glad for you. I mean it,” he said as he stood. “It is my honor to serve as your guard.”
“Thank you,” she managed to murmur once he was halfway to the door.
By the time Arthur came back, Vera knew that she should tell him, but she couldn’t find the words.
They left as soon as the horizon devoured the sun’s last light, and they rode through the night, taking only short breaks. The Magesary was in Oxford, well over a hundred kilometers away. They’d ride the next two days as well.
Dawn was a solid two hours off and the sky an inky void when they arrived at their destination, an unassuming nunnery north of Bristol. The prioress was a woman Arthur knew and trusted. She discreetly put them up in their guest rooms.
Vera collapsed gratefully on the bed and would have fallen asleep sitting up if Arthur had not taken her hand. She blinked at him through her stupor.
“Can you stay awake a bit longer?” he whispered.
She nodded, intrigued enough that her brain roused from its fog. Arthur led her through a door opposite the one they’d used to enter the chamber and into a modest chapel. Vera stumbled over her own feet. “Our room backs up to a chapel?” she said.
It was a small space: two benches in front of a wooden altar. Arthur sat on the front bench, so Vera followed suit, waiting for an explanation.
She turned at the main door opening behind her. Lancelot came first, followed by Gawain.
“We only have a few minutes,” Lancelot said.
Arthur nodded at Gawain to begin. So this was why they were here, but why so secretive?
“I believe that the Saxon mage who terrorized Crayford is the same as the one who committed the massacre in Dorchester,” Gawain said.
Arthur, Lancelot, and Vera all shared expressions of shock.
“The way their messenger described those deaths, both by magic and traditional violence, that’s how it was there. ”
Arthur leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “In Dorchester, it was all those without magic who were killed. This time, he slaughtered everyone with a gift. That doesn’t make sense.”
Lancelot was looking at Gawain with a strange, drawn expression. “You were there? In Dorchester?”
“Yes,” Gawain said to the air between Vera and Arthur rather than facing Lancelot. Nonetheless, Lancelot’s hand flinched as if to reach out in comfort. He balled it into a fist on his own thigh instead.
“I was born there,” Gawain continued. “My family was killed in the attack. Merlin was the first mage to respond after the massacre. He offered me a place at the Magesary. He’s the closest person to family that I have.”
Vera hadn’t realized. It brought a surge of affection for Merlin, complicated by his actions of late. “Do you trust him?” she asked.
Gawain hesitated before saying, “I do. I always have.”
“Then why are we having a secret meeting?” she said.
“Because of the real reason that we must see the mages.” Gawain took a deep breath. “I believe they can help with the Saxon, but there is another aspect to magic’s dwindling that needs to be addressed with the mages. Merlin would stop me if he knew.”
“Why would he do that?” Arthur asked.
“Because it has to do with how the mages expand our powers.”
Vera sat up straighter. She’d long wondered about that. It had been lodged in the back of her mind since the day Gawain told her that most mages start with only one power. “How do mages amass more gifts?”
Lancelot answered automatically, “Study and innovation.”
Arthur nodded along with him.
Gawain held Vera’s stare.
She leaned toward him and asked again. “How?”
He licked his top lip and swallowed heavily.
“You can’t say,” she breathed.
“Now you are asking the right question.” Gawain said, smiling weakly at her.
He turned to Arthur. “Mages can speak freely only at the Magesary during a convened council gathering. After you have asked the mages for help, you must stay in the room. They will ask you to leave. They will pressure you to leave. As the ruler of this kingdom and thus of the mages, it is your right to stay. Tell them that. Do not leave that room.” His voice was stern.
He rubbed anxiously at his temple with his thumb, his hand trembling.
Whatever he meant for Arthur to understand, it frightened him.
“I won’t,” Arthur said.
“What did the mage in Dorchester look like?” Lancelot asked.
“He was obscured by magic like a shadow made flesh. Horrible and somehow unseeable.”
Vera shivered. Something … there was something else. It flitted around the edges of her thoughts, evading her. She kept coming back to the stories of Arthurian legend from her future. Vera tried to swat it out of her thoughts, but she could not stop its buzz.
Le Morte d’Arthur.
The tome’s name rose up in her mind, and she froze. The Death of Arthur.
She remembered a character from the legends that she had yet to meet. He had to be fiction. And yet … so many other pieces had come to fruition. A jolt of fear seared through her.
“Did the mage have a name?” she asked, hopeful that the truth would free her from her dread.
It did not.
Gawain nodded. “He called himself Mordred.”