Camelot & Vine

by Petrea Burchard

  -----

  Bedwyr waited inside the gate atop the zig-zag path, twisting his blond braids with his big fingers.

  “You’re wanted in the paddock, Casey,” he said, peering into the cart. Shock widened his eyes when he recognized our cargo. “Good gods.” He helped me down, then looked to Agravain, blinking. “Lynet’s in the workroom, friend.”

  The two gripped hands, then let go. Agravain drove off toward the hall, the question mark of his back bending low, the cart rocking in the ruts of the path now that jostling Gareth was no longer a consideration.

  “What happened?”

  I wanted to tell Arthur first. “He died of his wound.”

  “Hm.” Bedwyr chewed his lip. “More bad news,” he said. “There’s been another death.”

  -----

  The smith was paying far less attention that morning to his hammer and tongs than to the group of men at the other side of the dirt yard behind the barn.

  King Arthur stared down over a plump body that lay sprawled where the paddock fence met the vine-covered fortress wall. Pawly’s neck twisted wrongly opposite his torso, his empty eyes facing upward as if to watch the smoke from the forge as it twisted toward the sky.

  I leaned against the wall for support. I should have been accustomed to such horrors by then.

  “He’s been dead since quite early this morning or late last night,” said Cai, rising from the body and wiping dirt from his knees.

  “Poor lad.” The bags under King Arthur’s eyes made him look like he hadn’t slept in the five days since I’d seen him. I had missed him. “Was there a struggle?” he asked.

  Cai examined the ground around the body. “I see no evidence of one.”

  “The killer must have erased his footprints,” said Medraut, tugging at his father’s arm.

  King Arthur jerked his arm away. Medraut backed off.

  Cai pretended not to notice. “The vines are undisturbed as well,” he said. “Had there been a fight this close to the wall, Pawly might have clutched at them.” He paused, his eyes sweeping from the wall to the body and back. “Or so I imagine.”

  The three of them looked to the wall, searching for a clue. Along the length of it inside the paddock, thick vines dangled from the copse like a dusty curtain no one had bothered to open for as long as anyone could remember. Behind me, clinging to the one part of the growth I blocked from their view, a small piece of torn, white cloth had become caught on a broken vine. Only one person at Cadebir wore white. That person had left this place in a hurry.

  “He didn’t have a chance to fight,” said Medraut.

  “How do you know?” King Arthur pounded the fence with his fist. “What’s your evidence?”

  “His killer lay in wait for him.”

  “You were here?”

  “I was in the copse. Pawly was in the paddock. We were looking for something. But I heard—”

  Medraut barely had time to grunt before his father grabbed his shoulders and shoved him against the fence.

  “Stop your looking, idiot! You see where it’s got you! You had one friend. One! Now you have none.”

  The king released his son, who fell to the ground like a handful of crumpled refuse. King Arthur stomped to a bench in the shade of the barn and threw himself down beside Bedwyr, who’d been watching the proceedings with hunched shoulders and grim visage. I wondered where Sagramore was.

  “Mistress Casey,” sighed King Arthur, his head in his hands, “what insight do you bring?”

  “None, Sire.” I rose from my kneeling position by the wall. With the king in such a temper it was bad form to keep him waiting. “Except I think Caius is right. Pawly must have been attacked from behind and killed pretty fast.”

  Cai pursed his lips in what for him was his gratified face.

  “Then we have a murder,” said Arthur. “I wish it were not so. But a man doesn’t strangle himself.” He sat up and fortified himself with a deep breath, taking command. “Caius, allow no one to leave the fort. You may have the body removed if your investigation is complete. Go now. I’ll watch over him. Mistress Casey,” he said, in the same tone he’d used to give orders to Cai, “sit beside me and tell me the news from Ynys Witrin.” He gave no orders to Medraut.

  Cai took his opportunity and left through the barn. Bedwyr, too, thought it best to depart from the bench at that moment and help Medraut hobble away. The smith returned to pounding at his furnace. Soon, with the exception of the smith, Arthur and I were the only ones to share the paddock with Pawly’s desolate body.

  I wished Bedwyr would stay. I began to second-guess my resolve, wondering if telling Arthur the truth at that moment would serve him or serve me. Serving my friends had become my purpose, yet with so little experience at it I wasn’t sure what was best.

  “Sit. Have you rested well? How is Morgan? Did you like my aunt Vivien?” His questions were clipped commands.

  His aunt. I should have known. Cadebir was a small world. “Yes, Sire, very much.” My stomach growled. Not hunger. Nerves.

  Arthur stared ahead. “I envy you your time there, even your wound. If I’d had such an excuse I could have gone with you. Ynys Witrin is the only peaceful place I know. I’ll be buried there one day.”

  The legend. “Have you heard of Avalon, Sire?”

  “No. “

  He waited, so I spoke. “The legend says you were taken by barge to the Isle of Avalon. You lie beneath it still, to return when Britain needs you again.”

  He emitted a sharp breath—a shortened, bitter laugh. “How sentimental. It sounds like Ynys. But I won’t return. That’s something a god would do. I’m a man.” He continued to gaze ahead and I was free to watch him, to want to ease the worry in his forehead and the sadness in his eyes, to admire how he held the weight of his dying tribe on his shoulders.

  “Sire. Gareth is dead.”

  He blinked. His mouth worked in tiny movements. I couldn’t know what he felt but I hoped it wasn’t anger.

  “Nothing you could do, eh?” The gravel tumbled in his throat.

  “No, Sire.” Which was true.

  I meant to tell him then that Gareth might have died because I'd refused to go to Beran Byrig. I was sure it would be the next thing I’d say. But the grief and disappointment that overtook Arthur’s face defeated my courage. One blow at a time was enough. Honesty wasn’t going to be a simple matter of telling the truth. What if the truth didn’t serve the king? What if it meant more anguish for him? When would the things I wanted to say be the things he needed to hear?

  We remained on the bench with a space of quiet between us, a quiet punctuated only by the blacksmith’s hammer, until Cai and his helpers returned carrying a stretcher and muttering about logistics. I silently thanked Cai for having the respect to bring the priest. Even simple, squirmy Pawly deserved a blessing.

  -----

  Arthur left when Cai’s men came. I stayed to think things through. I had long suspected Guin and Lance met for their trysts somewhere in the barn, taking romance where they could get it even if that meant making love on a pile of straw amid smells of animal and human industry. Apparently Medraut suspected something similar but not exactly the same—not in the barn, but near it. This I guessed because he’d been searching the copse outside the wall when Pawly was killed. I also guessed the killer had seen Pawly get too close to the lovers’ hiding place.

  Outside the wall, Medraut had heard something. He must have hurried around through the gate and arrived at the paddock too late to save Pawly, but not too late to interrupt the murderer. Otherwise why would the killer have left the body in the open, so easy to find?

  Had Medraut and Pawly found the hiding place without realizing it? From my seat on the bench I searched the paddock’s wide space of black earth, muddled by hooves and muddied by rain. Beyond the smithy to my right, the ground opened to the southeast corner of the pasture. In the opposite direction, a log fence separated the paddock from the main path and the northeast gate, with it
s guard shack and potential witnesses. Directly behind me, the barn might have held a hiding place. But Medraut and Pawly didn’t think so, and they’d gotten close.

  Yet I saw nothing but dirt, wall and vines.

  Maybe the trysting place was beyond the wall. I’d seen the lovers enter the copse when Myrddin had toured me around the hilltop that early day at Cadebir. But Medraut had been searching there, and he wasn’t the murder victim.

  Maybe the hiding place was between copse and paddock. On the wall. Or in it.

  I’d never walked that part of the wall. On our morning walks we climbed down the ladderway at the construction site and walked around the pasture to the gate, never traversing the section behind the barn. The wall was made up of stones and dirt below and the timber walk above. But what if a breach hid under that walk, behind those vines? Such a spot lay open on the south wall, where the slaves worked. It was possible.

  The one person who would know was Sagramore. The barn and paddock were his domain. Where was he? No one had remarked on his absence, making me wonder if he was a suspect.

  But I suspected Lancelot. Lancelot had threatened me. He could as easily have threatened Sagramore. Keep the secret or die.

  With that thought I saw Sagramore’s perpetual sadness in a new light. Pawly’s murder was proof that Lancelot was capable of making good on his word.

  I had to find Sagramore.

  When Cai and his men carried the body away I went with them. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the swatch of white cloth I’d put in my pack, but I thought it might come in handy.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  No fire burned in the workroom’s fire pit. Laundry and mending lay untouched in piles on the floor, like bodies after a battle. When I backed away from the window the scruffy dogs scattered behind me, barking and yipping.

  In the kitchen, the workers were as busy as the flies. Carcasses for the evening meal dangled from the ceiling like bloody chandeliers.

  “She’s with Agravain,” said Heulwen, when I asked about Lynet. “They’re guarding Gareth’s spirit. You won’t see her ‘til after they’ve put him in the ground this afternoon.”

  “Guarding his spirit?”

  Heulwen frowned as though I’d uttered a non sequitur, then shook her head. “Ah. Sometimes I forget you’re a Saxon. It’s what we do. Gareth’s spirit will not be left alone ‘til he’s safely in the ground.”

  “A good custom. Are Elaine and Guin with them?”

  “I suppose the queen’s there. Elaine’s gone.” Heulwen pounded a heap of brown dough, sending up clouds of flour. “Her husband thought it best. A woman with a babe’s no use ‘round here.”

  I noted her sarcasm. “Where’d she go?”

  “The coast. Tintagel.” Heulwen flipped the dough. “She and Galahad will be safe there.”

  Tintagel. The poster I'd seen, so long ago. The luxurious castle Lynet had mentioned. The coast might not be so bad. “It must be a dangerous trip for a lady and a baby.”

  “She has an escort.” Heulwen’s strong hands rolled the bread. “Sagramore will see her safely to the castle.” Her cheeks went red.

  “Well. At least that went right.”

  “Aye,” said Heulwen, winking. “It’s high time something went right for Elaine.”

  -----

  Alone in my hut I combed my hair with my fingers, pulled it back from my temples, and tied it with the ribbon Elaine had given me. I chose the blue tunic, hoping it would set off the color of my eyes. Perhaps there would be a chance to speak to the king that night, when he was full of roasted meat and wine.

  I reached for the bracelet Lynet had given me and saw on the table a plain, red clay bowl that hadn’t been there before. It was just a bowl, but even mundane items were scarce at Cadebir. The queen must have secured it. A gift in exchange for a potion.

  At a restaurant in North Hollywood, a certain salad on the menu was said to make a woman fertile. I’d always avoided that salad and ordered the individual pizza instead. I couldn’t remember the ingredients, except lettuce.

  I scooped up the loose bills and coins I’d left on the table and put them in the bowl.

  Myrddin said there was no pregnancy potion. That was the truth I would tell Guinevere.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Night poured down on the mead hall like a hard rain. Smoke drifted from the fire pit, seeking escape through the clerestory windows. Finding comfort in their numbers, warlord kings, soldiers of rank and a few women crowded into the hall to fete Gareth. They would stay late, fortifying themselves against events foreseeable and unforeseeable, with glass after glass of mead.

  I steered my trencher out from under a bird that perched in the rafters, waiting to swoop at the scraps. Agravain, Lynet, Medraut and Guinevere were late. Perhaps they’d stayed long over the grave. King Arthur had been at the burial, too, yet he managed to be present at his nephew’s funeral feast. Lynet and Agravain could be excused in their grief. Medraut might be too humiliated to show up. But it was bad form for the queen not to be prompt. Drinking wine and more wine, the king watched the doors for her, brooding.

  I thought his anxiety unnecessary until I considered who else was missing. Where once Lynet had brought order to the masculine chaos of her group, only shadows flickered at the empty corner table. Hew now sat across from Bedwyr, his slim shoulders hunched where Sagramore’s broad back had once blocked my view. The tables at the rear, where the Belgic soldiers feasted and drank, were sparsely populated with fewer than a dozen men, who had remained at Cadebir instead of returning to Poste Perdu to await the festival of Calan Awst. Among them sat Lyonel, hulking over his mead.

  Myrddin was still at Ynys Witrin. Besides his and Guinevere’s, two other chairs sat empty at the king’s table. I knew where Elaine had gone. But there was no reason for Lancelot not to be there.

  Before I could trap myself in worries, a murmur arose near the door. I sought Guinevere’s white tunic in the shadows. Instead, a man I didn’t recognize strode into the hall under the flicker of torchlight, followed by Agravain and Lynet. If the man’s confident entry hadn’t made him stand out his height would have done so, as would the mud on his boots and on the hem of his black robe. His dark hair hung loose to his shoulders. When he strode down the center aisle toward King Arthur, Lyonel and the other Belgae stood and drew their knives. Arthur’s men greeted the stranger warmly and Lyonel's gang sat again, but the mood of the crowd remained wary.

  King Arthur stood, opening his arms in welcome. “Forgive my surprise, Gaheris. How could you have known to be here so quickly? Join me and drink to your brother on this sad day.”

  The resemblance was there, in the dark hair and dark eyes. The stranger was one of the brothers Gareth had bragged about, come to see his kindred king.

  Gaheris skirted the fire pit and knelt before King Arthur with a swift motion more insistent than beseeching. “Sire, it’s by accident that I’ve arrived in time for my brother’s funeral feast. Only hours sooner I’d have seen him laid in the ground.”

  “You are welcome in any case,” said Arthur. He glanced at Lynet. She looked as though she’d fall into a heap if Agravain were to ease his grip on her. But like a second backbone, he held her up. “Come,” said the king. “Take some food.”

  “I’m on a different errand, Sire.” Gaheris rose, but made no move toward the table. He lowered his eyes from the challenge but his urgency could not obey. “I’ve brought my army because you have not sent yours. Why have you not responded to my brother Gawain’s request?”

  The king stiffened. “I’ve had no word from Gawain.”

  “He sent a messenger at the last full moon, Sire. Did the man not arrive? Saxons gather in the north. Gawain needs your armies to help to hold them off. He hasn’t supplies for a siege. His stores are low after the fires.”

  Agravain’s body straightened to alert.

  “No messenger has been here,” said King Arthur. “I know of no fires.”

  No one moved. King
Arthur took his seat one muscle at a time, taking short breaths through his nose.

  “Sire. Two granaries went up in flames at Beran Byrig last month.” Gaheris spoke more gently, in response to the king’s shock. “Gawain sent to you for help, but when he could wait no longer he got a dispatch to me at Essa. I’m only stopping on my way.”

  Agravain screwed up his nose like he smelled something rotten. Something about the story seemed wrong to me, too.

  “Sire—” said Agravain.

  “I’ve caught them!”

  Agravain whirled around.

  Medraut charged into the hall, shouting, “I’ve caught them in the immoral act!”

  Benches toppled at the back of the room, setting the dogs to barking. A torch clattered from the wall and someone stomped out the fire. Medraut shoved his way through the hall, pushing people aside. Half a dozen soldiers followed him. Hanging their heads and shuffling their feet, they herded two glassy-eyed prisoners. Guinevere and Lancelot were leashed like dogs, with leather collars around their necks and hands tied behind their backs. They stared at the floor like criminals, which was what they were.

  The king shot from his chair, overturning it. “Seize him!” Every soldier in the hall rose to his feet if he wasn’t standing already. I stood, too, instinctively wanting to reach out for Guinevere. One by one, King Arthur’s men drew their weapons. Outnumbered as they were, Lancelot’s warriors drew as well, ready to fight. Lyonel puffed out his chest, daring someone, anyone, to start it. No one knew whom to seize until the king said, “Seize my son!”