Tempted by Ruin (Sons of Britain Book 4)

by Mia West

  “Nothing too taxing. Don’t think I could manage it.”

  A huff of laughter warmed his skin. “I was just wondering about your name.”

  “What about it?”

  “You changed it, right? But not by much. Why not?”

  He took a deep breath. How to explain it? “I knew I didn’t want to bear the name Palamedes anymore. I didn’t want to accept he was my namesake. Couldn’t imagine trying to start a new life here with it. But I didn’t want to forget, either. Neither the deed nor the men who’d condoned it. My father…his name was Ahmed. So I made a name between them that would remind me.”

  Gawain looked at him for several heartbeats, then asked, “How long’s it been since you said your father’s name?”

  “That was the first time since I left home.”

  His hawk rose on an elbow and kissed him. “You’ve a new home now.”

  “I do.” Idly, he stroked Gawain’s shorter hair. “You trimmed it.”

  “I was in the north.”

  He let it brush across his fingers. It was true that the men in the Orcades kept theirs shorter than those in the south. In Gawain’s case, though, he wondered now if it had been a defense mechanism. Less for the Lots of the world to grab him by.

  Palahmed was content to voice neither his theory nor a question to confirm it. Better to let some things die.

  Especially when one was determined to live. They had seven years to make up for, after all.

  Hold.

  Seven years, and a different question.

  He gripped Gawain’s bare shoulder. “You never asked me.”

  Gawain looked up at him again. “Asked you what?”

  “What you were going to ask me seven years ago. When I laid down that stupid challenge.” It was moot now, but he thought he’d quite like to hear it.

  Gawain chuckled, and then he nodded. “Would you like more ale?”

  “Was it that serious? I need ale to hear it, even now?”

  “No, Saracen.” Gawain grinned, his green eyes shining. “That’s what I was going to ask you that night, seven years ago.”

  “If I wanted more ale.”

  “Just so.”

  God.

  Oh, God, had he mistaken that whole exchange and made them both miserable for nothing—

  Gawain rose and nipped at his ear. “Right before I asked if you wanted to fuck me.”

  Laughter filled the chamber after that, though he couldn’t have said whose began it. It dipped and swooped as they tussled, became a raucous thing of joy and striving, and then kept on more quietly when they lay still and sweating again.

  It was part of them, just as they were part of each other, woven together now into something much greater, like the lights in the northern sky.

  Something that shimmered with hope.

  Chapter 25

  The hall rang with laughter. Beside Arthur, Bedwyr’s was the low rumble he loved. Sometimes he’d sit close to Bed, just to feel the vibration of it in his shoulder or his thigh.

  But not everyone was laughing, and Arthur had noticed because he hadn’t been watching the tale-teller gesturing at the fire. Instead, he was watching Medraut.

  The lad sat at their same table but down toward the end. His elbows rested on the scarred planks, like a mirror of the warriors assembled there. Like a mirror of Arthur’s own posture. But the lad wasn’t one of the men, not even in their enjoyment of the tale.

  He looked as if he didn’t believe himself part of anything, and that made a fist about Arthur’s heart and squeezed it, hard.

  “I’ll be back,” he said to Bedwyr and rose from the bench.

  Bed looked up at him in question, but when Arthur tipped his head toward Medraut, Bed raised his cup. Good luck.

  He would need it. What did he know of this sort of thing? Was this even the right time to address the issue—wasn’t Medraut still a bit young?

  Pushing aside the questions, he made his way along the bench to where Medraut sat and clapped him on the shoulder. “Walk with me?”

  Medraut looked at him wide-eyed for a breath, as if Arthur might change his mind or realize he’d tapped the wrong person, but then he scrambled off the bench and followed Arthur toward the door. On the way, Arthur caught the eye of Gwen, who of course knew in a glance what was going on. She smiled, eyes shining, and nodded to him. Beside her, Elain sat straight and watchful. Then she saluted him.

  Right. No going back now.

  The air outside was cool, crisp with the mingled scents of woodsmoke and leaf rot. Overhead, clouds gathered but loosely, bits of dark sky peeking through among them. He turned left from the door, and Medraut trotted alongside him as they wound through the lanes of the settlement. When they came to the smithy, Arthur pulled two of the blacksmith’s log stumps out into the walkway.

  Medraut sat down across from him, eyes nailed to his own. His hands gripped his knees. “Am I in trouble?”

  Was this how Arthur had looked, all those times his grandfather Wolf had sat him down just so, on a stump in his workshop? Small, skinny, cautious.

  But determined to face his fate, at the callused hands of the man across from him.

  “Have you done something needs punishing?”

  Medraut stared at him, then blurted, “It was dead when we found it.”

  Arthur started. “What was dead?”

  “The rabbit. By the river. Gally cried and cried, but it wasn’t my fault.”

  All right. He hadn’t expected any of that. He set a hand to the lad’s shoulder. “You’re not in trouble. But it’s time we talked.”

  “About what?”

  “About you, and where you came from.”

  The boy’s eyes grew wider in the dim light.

  “I think you have some questions.”

  Medraut nodded.

  “Well?”

  “Are you my uncle?”

  “I might answer that, Medraut, but it’s not the question you truly want to ask. Is it?”

  “No.”

  Arthur waited.

  To his credit, Medraut took just one deep breath, then, “Are you my father?”

  Brave lad, who deserved the truth.

  Arthur so wished he could give it. “We don’t know.”

  The wind seemed to go out of the boy. He slumped and looked at the dirt.

  “Uncertainty is difficult. And when faced with it, we can review what we know for sure. In our case, we know that I’m married to your mother, Gwen. We had a wedding night. It didn’t go as most do, but it’s possible I helped create you. It’s also possible that your mother Elain did so. When uncertainty comes to us, sometimes we can only sit with it, until an answer presents itself.”

  “How long will that take? For me?”

  “Maybe until you’re bearing arms.”

  “That long?”

  “By then, we should be able to see who you resemble more, in stature, in character.”

  “But…”

  “But what?”

  Medraut took another breath, but then seemed to lose his nerve.

  Reaching out, Arthur lifted him to his feet and pulled him to stand between his knees. He linked his hands behind the lad’s back, and pressed a thumb to the small bumps of his spine. “What is it?”

  Medraut looked up at him, frowning. “It feels like it’s you.”

  That fist around his heart tightened again. “It may be.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  Did he? And did he want to?

  Suddenly, neither mattered. Not when this one was looking up at him, making this courageous stand, and hoping he wouldn’t be ignored.

  “I believe you, Medraut. And you’re part of me whether I helped make you or not. I look at you, and I’m proud.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You do your lessons, and you listen to those who are wiser, and you help care for Gally. But I’m going to ask you a question now.” He drew his own bracing breath. “How would you feel if I told you that you were
n’t my son?”

  Medraut’s face fell and he blinked. Bit his lip. “Not good.”

  “Then I want you to imagine how Elain might feel if you told her you weren’t her son.”

  The boy’s eyes skipped away.

  “Medraut?”

  A few breaths passed before Medraut looked back to him. “She would hurt.”

  “She would, if you denied her. We need to take care of one another.”

  “Will you take care of me?”

  There it was, the real question. The one every child deserved an answer to, whether the adults in their lives felt capable or not. In that moment, though, he didn’t feel quite as out to sea as he’d expected. He could almost feel them, all the people who’d raised him, as if they stood arrayed behind him in the shadows of the smithy.

  “Yes, Medraut, I promise it.”

  No sooner were the words out than the lad was hugging him tightly about the ribs. Arthur pulled him close, marveling that someone so small could be so strong.

  “There are some things I’d like to show you before the winter missions begin. Would you like that?”

  Medraut pulled back. “Can we start now?”

  Arthur laughed. “It’s dark just now. But…”

  He scanned the sky, where the clouds had dissipated, leaving only stars and more stars, centered always, in his mind, about the great dragon and bear to the north.

  “That’s a perfect opportunity to show you the most important thing.”

  Epilogue

  “One more.”

  Morien smiled. “You must sleep.”

  Galahad gripped his blanket. “Pleeease.”

  “I’ve told you every tale I know.”

  It certainly felt so. For years, he’d been sharing with Gwen’s sons the same tales his mother had told him, long ago. It had become their nightly ritual, one the lads would do almost anything not to miss. That made Gwen happy, and she used to its fullest advantage.

  But Morien enjoyed it too. The boys made a rapt audience, and telling the tales helped him keep his memories of a distant place aglow in his chest like a precious coal.

  When Arthur had led Medraut from the hall earlier this evening, Gally, who had been perched on Morien’s knee, had craned his neck to watch until the door closed behind them. Morien had known then that the boy might need a little more attention this evening than the usual one or two bedtime tales.

  So when he’d gotten Gally settled, more or less, in the bed he shared with his brother, Morien had dug deep into his trove of stories for something truly special. Tales the lad had never heard. Tales he might—most likely would—boast to Medraut about hearing. Sometimes a younger sibling needed such advantages.

  Turned out, Galahad loved any story in which the hero could shift his shape into an animal’s, and back again. Leopards, eagles, stags, great toothy fishes. And small creatures, too: otters and squirrels, toads and honeybees. They’d spent quite some time talking about what sorts of animals Gally might like to become, were that possible.

  That’s how Morien had put it: “…if you could.”

  Because the lad was too young yet to know that, for some men—rare and special men—such a thing was possible.

  Gally screwed his eyes shut and yawned. “I know a tale you missed,” he said, sounding very sleepy.

  Morien tucked his blanket around his shoulders. “And what tale would that be?”

  “This one.” One small arm escaped its cocoon and reached toward Morien’s shirt. Quick as a skink, Gally reached under his collar and tugged out the pendant.

  Morien extracted it from Gally’s hold. The pit felt rough against his fingers, though smoother now than the day he’d dug it from its peach and drilled the hole to string it on. “That tale doesn’t have an ending yet,” he said. “It doesn’t even have a beginning.”

  “What…” Gally yawned again. “What d’you mean?”

  “I mean, some stories take time in the making.”

  The lad looked at the seed, then back to him. “Will you tell it to me when it’s finished?”

  Morien smiled. “I will.” A version appropriate for young ears, perhaps.

  Galahad rolled onto his side. “I think it’s about a prince,” he murmured, closing his eyes, “and a scoundrel.” He drew a deep breath, then added, “And a promise.”

  Morien watched over the lad until he dropped soundly into sleep, and then his fingers sought the pendant.

  “I think so too, Gally,” he whispered.

  He extinguished the lamp and left the lad to his dreams, closing the door softly behind him.

  End of Book 4

  ~ ~ ~

  Thank you for reading Tempted by Ruin!

  Want to know what happens next?

  Click here to get Book 5 as soon as it’s available.

  Author’s Note

  Gawain / Gwalchmai

  In my twenties, I read every Arthurian retelling I could get my mitts on. That was pre-Amazon and (almost) pre-internet, so I was limited by the collections of the public libraries where I lived at the time, in Orlando and then in San Antonio (both of which were excellent, by the way). One of my discoveries was Gillian Bradshaw’s Down the Long Wind trilogy, which centers Gawain and his brothers. The first book is called Hawk of May, referring to one interpretation of Gawain’s Welsh name, Gwalchmai. Gwalch = hawk, an idea I loved and ran with in this book.

  I haven’t read Bradshaw’s trilogy since that first time, partly out of fear I won’t like it as much now that I’m older and have my own writing style. Having written my own version of Gawain’s story now, though, I may reread it. If you’ve read it, let me know if you liked it!

  Many traditions have Gawain hailing from the Orkney islands, and I’ve kept that here. The Pictish language used there in the late Iron Age and early medieval period is now extinct, though it’s thought that orc was an early root word used to refer to these islands. Romans dubbed them the Orcades, and most of the Cymry in this series call them that, as I imagine many of Rhys’s maps being of Roman origin. There may have been a Pictish kingdom in far northern Scotland called Cait, just across from the islands. Using that, I’ve taken some linguistic license to have Gawain call the islands the Orcait.

  I’ve also taken some literary license in the location, size, and structure of Lot’s stronghold, but now that you’ve read the epilogue, you know I’m about to take even more artistic license with this series and its fantastical possibilities. *grin*

  Palahmed / Palamedes

  Palahmed is based on the character of Sir Palamedes (sometimes Palomides), who was introduced during Europe’s late middle ages into Arthurian legend along with a ton of other characters, events, and themes. Those tales mention his brother Safir, as well as another brother, Segwarides, whom I’ve not included in this series. Sir Palamedes was often a questing partner to King Pellinore (whom you met as Lord Pell if you read Driven by Duty) and a man who lost Isolde to Tristan. He’s generally presented as honorable and serious, though when T.H. White got hold of him, he became comic relief.

  Though I don’t appreciate a lot of elements introduced to Arthuriana in the 12th and 13th centuries, including some super shitty misogyny, I do appreciate the introductions of Sir Palamedes, Sir Safir, and Sir Morien, as they highlight the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of medieval Europe (for more on that, see below). In particular, Palamedes and Safir were referred to as Saracen, a term used by Christian writers in Europe’s middle ages to denote, variably, someone from Arabia Petraea (a Roman province comprising parts of the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas) and/or a follower of Islam. The stories in the Sons of Britain series predate the lifetime and teachings of the prophet Muhammad, so the SoB characters use Saracen in reference to Palahmed and Safir’s boyhood homeland.

  As with all the warriors and mercenaries in this series, I’ve left their personal deities and spiritual practices to your imagination. The only shape I’ve given them so far is that the men of Cymru and the north call on multiple
gods, while Palahmed refers to only one, reflecting that he and Safir were raised in a monotheistic tradition. In my mind, however, every one of these men practices a faith he’s cobbled together over years of fighting, favoring only the bits and pieces he believes will help him survive from skirmish to skirmish, regardless of formal teachings.

  Diversity in Medieval Europe

  (I shared this in the author’s note for Book 3 but want to include it here in case you’re new to Sons of Britain…)

  A faction exists who believe that Europe in the middle ages was populated solely by white people. Some folks have never questioned their assumptions, but others are more insidious, using this image of a lily-white Europe to prop up an ideology of white supremacy.

  An all-white Europe was never the case, at any point in history, and we have a lot of evidence in literature and other art forms to support that fact—and celebrate it. I recommend especially the work of Twitter account @medievalpoc for any readers interested in experiencing artifacts surviving from Europe’s very diverse past.

  Khalida

  In some early texts about Gawain, he has a great charger of a horse. The men around Arthur in this series don’t fight on horseback, but I saw a chance to explore the idea by giving him a dog. A big dog. :)

  In those early tales, the horse’s name in Welsh is unreliably spelled, depending on the text, but one version is Keincaled (kein = handsome; caled = hardy). That’s a bit of a mouthful, and I was looking for something a bit more feminine. I also wanted a name that might evoke some aspect of Palahmed’s boyhood home in Arabia since he names the pup. Caled stood out to me, reminding me of the name Khaled. I searched some naming resources (mainly behindthename.com), and found that the feminine form is Khalida. And when I read that one of its meanings is eternal, I knew I had the right name for the pup who would symbolize the bond between Gawain and Palahmed.

  Not gonna lie, you’ll be seeing more of Khalida. Because overgrown puppies who become enormous dogs are awesome. #sorrynotsorry