by J A Cummings
Copyright © 2017 by J. A. Cummings
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
To Be Continued
With gratitude to
Sandy Nelson
for
helping to define
the queens.
Prologue
The wind tore across the field, rippling through the pennants and flaps of the gathered tents. The scent of the men and the horses, the fires and the marsh, all reached him in gusts and eddies, lifting his hair from his feverish brow and stinging his eyes. Arthur looked across the field to the waiting enemy, the black pennants of their lord’s signet snapping like whips. The men on that side stood, as his men stood too, each side gazing at the other, measuring, waiting. He knew that death was watching and waiting, too, and the Macha was ready to harvest her bloody acorns, still hungry despite the feast they had already provided.
He looked down at his hands. The palms were rough and dirty from weeks of fighting, the calluses stained with the dye from his sword hilt’s leather wrappings. Dried blood was still stuck beneath his fingernails, some of it his own, most of it not. There had been no time between battles to properly wash. Since the landing at Dover, they had been chasing and fighting and chasing again, and now they had gone as far as they could. Nothing remained before them but the sea, and nothing remained in their war but to stand and finish it.
Across the field, a black horse paced slowly, a black-armored figure on its back. The rider’s helmeted head turned toward Arthur himself. He knew from prior close contact that the visor was singular, a blank face with eye holes but no mouth, a frightening and implacable mask. It spoke to the featureless and baseless rage of the owner, the inhuman thirst for blood and the need to destroy. All of Mordred’s lack of pity and hellish power expressed themselves through that image, and Arthur dreaded the mosaic that they would create together when the fighting began again.
They were meant to meet in the middle ground between their two armies, there to parley. Mordred would make demands, and Arthur would make concessions, and hopefully enough time would be bought for his beloved Lancelot to reach him from Benoic to help him put an end to all of this ruin. Gawain would never reach him again. If the parley failed, then war would resume, and he knew from prophecy and from the aching in his bones that there would be nothing for him after that. He had run for as long and as far as he could, and now his road was doubling back upon him, the earth waiting to swallow him and all of his good intentions like so much chaff.
Around them were archers and pikemen, those who had always supported him before and who bore the brunt of the destruction of any war. They watched him and Mordred warily. They, like the knights who clustered by their tents, knew that this would be the last battle.
These were the breathless, waiting times before Armageddon. Arthur looked up at the cloud-dark sky, searching the gray, smoke-stained clouds for the angels and demons that would fall upon poor mankind in just a matter of hours. He saw nothing but smoke trails from countless little fires, and in the distance, the billowing black rising from the destruction they had left behind. Another fire remembered made his eyes sting with tears, and not for the first time, he hated himself for giving the order to light it. He had earned this death, just as he had earned what he supposed would be an ignoble and forgotten grave in the field before him, assuming that his son decided not to claim his bones as trophies. That was the sort of thing that Mordred victorious would do. He had already claimed too many trophies.
Footsteps approached, and he looked at the knight who came to his side. It was Bedivere, his eyebrows shot through with grey, his face lined and weary. Bedivere, the only man to have been at his side from the beginning of his reign until now, was a fitting witness to the final gasp of Logres and all of his bright hopes. This was not the way the story was supposed to end.
“My lord,” the knight greeted. “It’s time. Your horse awaits.”
Arthur turned back toward the river. Father Cassius was walking slowly to stand beside the oak tree that had been chosen as their place of parley, the king’s own Bible in his hands. His grizzled head was lowered, his eyes nearly closed as he prayed in readiness for the carnage to come. Nobody presumed that the coming talks would succeed.
The king sighed. “How did it come to this?”
Bedivere’s only response was a steadying hand on his shoulder, an echo of the years he had spent in just this position, standing at Arthur’s side, acting as helper and ally and advocate. So many others had come and gone, fathers and brothers and lovers and wives, but Bedivere was still here. Only Bedivere, it seemed, would see him through to the end.
“This is just one day,” his old friend said. “And like every day, it will end.”
“How will it end?” the king asked, sounding again like the inexperienced boy who had pulled the sword from the stone, completely unprepared for where the world would take him. He stood at the edge of a gulf, with no idea where he would go from here. He felt utterly and completely lost.
“I don’t know, Arthur,” he admitted. “I can only pray that it ends well.”
Their eyes met, and the king shook his head slowly. “I fear that the time for good endings is long past.” He bent and picked up his helmet, which had been lying almost forgotten in the grass at his feet. He cleared it of debris and set it once more upon his head. “Let us see what Fate has designed for us.”
The household was still asleep when Arthur rose from his bed. The boy dressed as silently as he could, careful not to wake his foster brother Kay, who slept noisily on the pallet beside him. He tiptoed out of the room and closed the door, then crept down the hall past his guardian’s chambers. Like Kay, Ector was snoring in loud contentment, and though it was doubtful the knight would have heard anything over his own noise, Arthur still waited until he was in the kitchen before he put on his boots. The door to the courtyard scraped when he opened it, and he froze, listening for any interruption in the matching snores. When none came, he slipped out into the cold winter morning.
He crossed the courtyard at a trot, leaving the tiny keep and heading toward the stable. One of the grooms was already stirring, and he smiled at the boy as he passed.
“Morning, Master Arthur.”
“Good morning, Ewain.”
The stable was clean and tidy, warm and full of the welcoming smell of horses. In the farthest stall, Avona, the sole warhorse they owned, peeked over the door and whickered to him, his bright eyes blinking in friendly greeting. Arthur stroked the work horses gently as he passed them, but he only had eyes for Avona this morning. He went to the aging steed and stroked his nose. Ewain came into the stable, a polled spear in his hand.
“I’ve set up the quintain for you, sir,” he said, handing the weapon to the eager boy. “I’ll take it down again when you’ve finished.”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
The groom watched as Arthur saddled Avona and strapped on his barding. He helped the boy shrug into an oversized chain shirt that had been set aside for repairs, and then handed him two battered gauntlets, long since out of use. It had been Arthur’s habit for nearly a year to rise before the members of his foster family and train himself on the sly. He was too young, he had been told, to learn to fight just yet. Sir Ector seemed especially anxious to keep him from any sport where he could come to harm. Arthur’s body and spirit ached for action, though, and he could not tolerate being wrapped in wool and kept safe on a shelf, however much he recognized and appreciated the love behind his foster father’s concern. He watched Kay train during the day, every day, and he learned. The privacy of the early morning was the time for him to put his learning into practice.
“They’re gonna catch you at this one day,” Ewain warned him.
“Perhaps,” Arthur allowed. “But once my birthday passes, they’ll need to let me learn. I’ll be old enough then.”
“You look old enough now.”
He was tall for his age, and broader than any twelve-year-old had right to be. He knew that he was stronger than Kay, who was thirteen months his elder, and Kay knew it, too. His foster brother disliked Arthur heartily for it, but it could not be helped.
Avona was ready, and so was the boy, and he went out into the tiltyard. Ewain helped him mount and handed him a helmet, another battered relic that had seen its time of usefulness come and go. Arthur smiled his gratitude and, thus armed, spurred his mount toward the practice dummy.
In the keep, Sir Ector rose from his bed and pulled his robe over his scarred frame. He had fought in many battles in his day, serving at the side of High King Uther Pendragon, and his body showed the signs of his experience. He ran a hand through his beard, scratching at his chin, and went to the window to look out onto the tiltyard to watch his boy work. Arthur was clever, but he was not so smart that he could outfox this old warrior, who had once been an ambitious youth as well.
He watched his foster son putting himself through his paces. He sat the horse remarkably well, his strong legs holding him steady in the saddle, his back straight, his arm already powerful enough to hold the spear steady for striking. The boy was not quite grown enough to handle a real lance yet, but he made due remarkably well with the pig-sticker that he held. Sir Ector chuckled to himself. Arthur was swamped in the chain shirt, and the helmet was too large for his head and threatened to slip down over his eyes. The gauntlets he wore were outsized, and it was a wonder that the boy managed to hold his spear at all around the bulky things. Still, as comical a figure as the boy cut, Sir Ector could see a sturdy warrior taking shape.
Arthur struck the quintain’s shield square and hard with his spear, and he was well out of the way of the swinging counterweight by the time it spun. A living enemy would have been unhorsed. The old man shook his head and marveled not for the first time at the child he had been given to rear.
He had never been told who Arthur’s parents were. The druid Merlin had brought the child to Ector’s humble keep nearly thirteen winters ago, wrapped in gold cloth and accompanied by bags of riches. He had been a beautiful baby, wavy black hair thick on his tiny pate, bright blue eyes looking up with startling awareness. Merlin had told him nothing about the boy’s origin, only that he needed sheltering and a wet nurse to give him suckle, and that his name was Arthur. Sir Ector had suspected from the first that the boy was of royal blood. The moment he had taken the infant into his arms, he had loved him, and to this day, his heart was as warm for his foster child as it was for his own son.
He was certain now, watching the serious boy who rode very like a man, that he must have been the child of some godlike hero, or that he perhaps even had some faery blood in his veins. Surely he was no mere mortal boy. He thought often about where Arthur might have come from, who he might have belonged to by blood, and who might someday come to take him back. The idea of having to return Arthur to his distant parents pierced him anew, and he turned away from the thought. There would be time enough for such pain when the moment came; no sense in letting it poison the happiness of the present.
He scratched his chest with his curled and withered left hand, a legacy of a devastating sword cut he had received in the siege of Terrabil when Pendragon beset Duke Gorlois of Cornwall. He was fortunate that he had survived that dreadful day. He had been made nearly useless as a warrior, but the crippling injury had helped give him an excuse to stay at home and be the father he himself had never had. It was good that he had been wounded so badly, for his dear wife Aelwen died only two years later of a wasting fever. He had been needed here at Caer Gai, not out on campaign, especially with two young boys to raise alone.
It was a miracle how things happened exactly as they were needed.
Out in the tiltyard, Arthur made one last pass at the quintain, spurring Avona into a full gallop as he lowered his spear. He struck it fast and hard, and the spear shattered in his hand, splinters flying in every direction as the target spun around. He avoided the counterweight again and reined in his horse as the dummy toppled over into the dirt.
Ewain whooped. “What a buffet!”
Arthur took off his outsized helmet and grinned at the groom. “Thank you!” He frowned suddenly. “I’m sorry about the spear.”
“No matter. There are more.” The man trotted forward and plucked the quintain up from the ground. “You’d best get inside now, sir. The household is starting to bustle.”
Arthur dismounted and removed his gauntlets, then patted Avona’s sweaty neck. “He’s a good steed.”
“There are better,” Ewain said, “but he’ll do.”
“I think he’s the greatest steed in the world.”
“Maybe the greatest steed in your world.” The groom took the reins. “I’ll see to him, Master Arthur. You’d best run along.”
The boy scurried into the stable to remove his borrowed armor and hide it once again behind the hay bales. The groom watched him go, then turned his eyes up to the window to Sir Ector’s room. The old knight held up a hand to him, and Ewain waved back. There were no secrets in a keep this small.
Arthur drew fresh water from the well and took it into the kitchen, delivering it to Mairwen, the cook. She accepted the offering, the first of his daily chores, and continued with her breakfast preparations. Sir Ector came in and sat down at the table behind her with a cup of weak ale. He beckoned to his foster son.
“Come here, boy.” The youth obeyed, and the old knight sniffed. “You smell like a horse.”
Arthur knew better than to lie. “I was riding Avona.”
Sir Ector nodded and took a sip. “I see. Riding so early?”
“Kay will want to practice, so I wanted to ride before he did.”
“So now Kay will get to practice on a weary horse?” The man raised an eyebrow and smirked.
Arthur shifted uncomfortably. “I... hadn’t thought of that. It wasn’t my intention.”
“Of course not.”
With a clatter, Kay came into the room, going promptly to the sideboard to rummage for crumbs. Mairwen slapped his hand but gave him a crust from last night's bread, smeared with fresh butter. The youth shoved it into his mouth and joined his family at the table.
“Morning,” he said, barely understandable around his food.
“Good morning,” Sir Ector replied. “Arthur, run up to my room and fetch the casket, will you?” Both boys looked at one another askance. Their father always kept a close watch on his coin, which was all the casket held. If he was calling for money, something important was going on. “Go on, boy! I gave you an order!”
Arthur scampered up the stairs and into his foster father’s room. The hearth was cold, but it still smelled of last night’s smoke, and the chamber as a whole was cozy despite the winter air outside. Sir Ector’s bed was a disarray of crumpled furs and skins, under which his favorite linen sheets were laid, a little thin from years of use. Beside the bed, the
nightstand stood, bearing only the wash basin and a little hand towel. The casket was usually hidden in the wall behind it. Arthur knelt and pushed the nightstand aside, its wooden legs scraping across the stone floor as it reluctantly moved. The boy’s fingers pressed into the mortar lines around a particular stone, and it popped free after much effort, making him fall back onto his haunches with a grunt. He shimmied three more stones out of the wall and peered into the opening beyond.
Three scrolls were tied and sealed with wax, but he knew well what they were. One contained his foster father’s letters patent, granting him acknowledgement as a noble and vassal of the King. Another was the deed to the very castle where they lived, the tiny but quite serviceable Caer Gai. The third, well, Arthur wasn’t entirely certain what the third might be, but he supposed it was a genealogy of some sort, or possibly baptismal records, since Sir Ector was one of the Britons who had accepted the Roman faith. Beneath these scrolls was the casket, a wooden chest inlaid with polished pieces of abalone shell, held closed with a padlock whose key was always around Sir Ector’s neck. He pulled the casket and very nearly fell again, so heavy was the burden.
“Oof!” He shoved at the box, barely able to move it. “Kay!”
He could hear a grumble at the bottom of the stairs, then his foster brother made his resentful way up into the lord’s chambers. “What do you want, you filthy bastard?” he demanded.
Arthur was accustomed to Kay’s little names of affection and no longer reacted to them. “It’s too heavy. I can’t lift it.”
