Boniface gasped. Grief overwhelmed him, and he could not speak.
“Say no more,” came Nemue’s voice from behind. “The Lady has seen it written in the stars. Your time here is at an end.”
Her sigh echoed through Avalon and beyond. Its echo reached the two young monks through the glistening air. Boniface stood still. Before him stretched the white expanse of the frozen Lake, its surface broken with ragged clumps of frost-encrusted reeds. High overhead the starving marsh fowl mourned in the thin air, while a few searched hopelessly for food along the ice. And suddenly Boniface knew that he, too, was doomed to fly away from Avalon, and to starve forever like the birds, eternally grieving for what he had lost.
CHAPTER 33
“Not far now, sir. Hold on, if you can.”
The night was very dark under the trees. The air was thick with mist, and the weary horses stumbled over every stone. At the start of the ride, the fresh wet stink f his blood had risen up to choke Lancelot with every reath he took. Before long he had lost all feeling in his leg. Then as time went by, the jolting of his horse opened up the wound, and the pain and the blood both began again.
At least it stopped him thinking of Guenevere. He took off the blood-soaked girdle binding his thigh and made it into a tourniquet, twisting his dagger in the knot to tighten it. But the blood ran again despite the ligature, and he could feel his life ebbing away.
“Not far now to our father’s house, good sir, hold on.”
“Look out for a lantern shining through the trees. Our sister will be waiting to light our way home.”
Sir Lancelot sighed. Who were these voices? Not men he knew. Was that a lamp ahead, or a will-o’-the-wisp?
He thought he saw the dark shape of a dwelling through the mist. The horses drew up at the door of a rambling grange. Beneath a mossy stone porch a low door stood open, and a warm light spilled out from within. But the pain in his leg had now invaded his brain. And with the fever beginning to burn its way through his bones, he hardly believed what he saw by the light of the lamp.
A soft face, pink and white, with trusting eyes and smooth round girlish cheeks. A heartfelt smile of welcome, changing at once to shock. Quick tears of anger as she saw her brothers bleeding and in distress. A rainfall of bright hair as she turned her head at the sight of him.
He caught his breath. “You are—?”
She brushed past his stirrup in her haste to get to Sir Lavain. “Elaine of Astolat, sir.”
Lancelot did not move. This was Elaine? The little sister he thought must be a child? She was a woman grown. Her body was small but shapely, and her rounded breasts moved freely beneath her gown as she reached up to Lavain. Lancelot looked away. His fading mind struggled with a new pain. Would he have come if he had known she was a young woman, and lovely too? Would Guenevere hear of this, and think he had betrayed her as soon as he left court?
He groaned with pain. Guenevere doubted him, he knew for sure. He knew, too, that he must never give her cause, or her green-eyed jealousy would eat her alive. Yet now they had parted, was he condemned to be faithful to a memory, exiled forever from the joy of women’s love? The sight of the girl’s shining hair tormented him, and the movements of her body cut him to the quick. The thought came before he could check himself: If this were Guenevere now, warm, loving, free...
“Sons!”
Behind the young woman came an old man, white-haired and richly dressed. He hastened forward to embrace his sons in tears of grief and joy. A moment later he was standing at Lancelot’s stirrup, his hand on his arm.
“Sir, you are dearly welcome here in Astolat. I am Sir Bernard of the Grange, and this is my daughter, Elaine. My sons tell me that you saved their lives. Allow us to welcome you to our hearth and home.”
The old man bowed to the ground.
“No, no, sir.”
Sir Lancelot shook his head. The young should salute the old, not the other way around. He must dismount to return the courtesy. But as he threw back his injured leg to vault off, he fell forward over the horse’s neck, and crumpled to the ground.
THEN CAME A long time of sleep, and waking sleep. For a time he thought he had died, and felt no grief. His spirit left his body and roamed at will, riding the winds and walking among the stars.
Guenevere came to him there, clad all in starlight, shining in white and gold. The stars leaped up to greet her in flaming bursts of fire and ice. But nothing in that vast, glittering void was as bright as her eyes, and her smile lit the cold vault of the sky. He stood holding his soul in his hands, and she stretched out her arms and folded him in her embrace. Her lips touched his face, and her kiss soothed all his grief. Her fingertips brushed his eyelids as she said, “No tears, my love.”
When he awoke, he could taste salt on his lips, and he knew he had been weeping for hours. He knew, too, that he had not been alone. A presence, a faint scent still lingered in the air. His unknown guardian had withdrawn as soon as he stirred to allow him to recover himself unobserved. Whoever it was, he blessed her thoughtfulness. And he found himself wishing that the rosy presence would return.
Slowly he turned his head. He lay in a well-sized room with a vaulted ceiling and whitewashed walls. From the distant noises of life below, he judged his sickroom was at the top of the house. When he had first arrived and seen the low, rambling, ivy-covered front, he had taken the old grange for a place of peace, never meant to be defended in time of war. But this high, stone-built round chamber could withstand a siege. The thought gave him deep comfort, even though he knew there was no fear of attack. Puzzling over conundrums like these ate up his days.
He was at peace then, though he knew he was very ill. The infection he feared had come soon and gripped him hard. His body was jerked by strong internal strings, and his head rang with the chattering of his teeth. Gray heads and long beards came into his vision and departed again; grave voices debated when they thought he could not hear.
“The wound is festering. Could the rogues in the forest have envenomed their blades?”
“What venom would they need, doctor, living like rats in their own poisoned dung?”
“True, but the fever he suffers is more than a rat-borne plague.”
“We’ll bleed him, of course, to bring the fever down.”
“You leech-men have no other remedy! With what he’s lost, his veins must be empty now.”
“Wine, then, to renew his blood. And more blankets, tell the lady Elaine. He must not get cold.”
And then a young woman’s voice, soft and sad. “But he’s burning, sir, scorching all over his skin. And his wits are wandering enough without giving him wine.”
“Madam, are we the doctors here, or you? More wine and more coverings, straightaway.”
Every time he felt better, they came and bled him again and made him as weak as a girl. They searched his wound too, scouring deep into the suffering flesh whenever he thought it was beginning to heal. And every time they came, there was her hand in his hand, her voice at his elbow, low and controlled, but feeling with him pain for pain.
“Hold on, sir, hold on—”
TIME PASSED WITHOUT reckoning as he lay and watched the sun’s fading scrawl on the plain white walls. One by one the days dwindled down to the shortest day, the dead heart of the year. Down in the house he could hear the celebrations for the midwinter feast, and the men from the fields laughing and shouting as they dragged the Yule log in. On the night the year turned, his spirit left his body and drifted through the grange when all the merry revelers were asleep.
He saw the old hall hung with ivy and holly, the evergreen symbols of the Mother with Her promise of new life. He remembered the great balls of mistletoe swinging from every beam in Camelot at this time of the year, and saw Guenevere standing beneath one of them alone, her head bowed, her face veiled. Then he thought of the girl who was tending him here at the grange, and wondered who her lover was, who would press her body to his beneath the golden mistletoe ball. A fair rose
like her must be the pride of some lusty young lord. A wisp of longing passed into his wandering brain: how sweet it would be to walk with her in a summer garden under the kiss of the sun. Then he thought of Guenevere, and turned his face to the wall.
All through January he felt his strength return, step by step with the lengthening days. At Imbolc, the storms of February battered his tower room, and he feared the Dark Mother had come to take him home. But his nurse and guardian filled his room with light, to drive the dark away. All night she sat with him, tending the candles, not letting one burn out. After that, he knew that he would live.
“So, sir, are you feeling better now?” she said to him one day on a rising note of hope, as a leaden dawn broke through a pewter sky. For no reason that he knew, her round apple cheeks, her innocent gaze, the catch in her throat filled him with unimagined pain.
“How old are you?” he said.
“Almost twenty, sir,” she said with the sweet importance of a child.
He turned his head away. Had he ever been that young?
“SO, SIR, OUR sister tells us you are doing well.”
Lavain and Tirre came to see him every day, at first with sad faces like the doctors’, then with increasing hope. Their own wounds kept them tied to the grange until midwinter and beyond, and even when they could ride out again and hunt, not a day passed but they remembered him.
But it was Elaine who cared for him hour by hour. She was a stranger to his body, since the doctors dressed his wound and her brothers’ men-servants washed and tended him. Yet her hands arranged his pillows and turned down his lamp, her devotion coaxed down the sour red wine needed for his blood. Her voice read to him, talked to him, prayed for him, and at last rejoiced with him as his strength returned.
“I think he might take the air,” pronounced the oldest of the doctors one sweet day in May. With glowing eyes, Elaine oversaw her brothers as they carried him outside and settled him in a chair. Almost bursting with pride, she spread her small plump hands and gestured around.
“Well, sir?” She dimpled.
At the back of the grange, a green lawn ran down to a broad rolling river. As far as the eye could see, great oaks and willows traced the water’s winding course. Buttercups and daisies rioted over the fields beyond, and the scent of new-mown grass hung in the air. At the water’s edge, a large, flat-bottomed barge floated in the sun, tied up to a wooden pier.
“Astolat is beautiful,” Lancelot said.
“Thank you, sir!”
Lavain, Elaine, and Tirre hung around him, laughing and excited like children at play. The air warmed his wasted limbs, and the breeze off the river felt like a lover’s kiss. I should be happy now, Lancelot told himself. Then the next thought was, Guenevere—
“Sir?”
He forced himself to follow Tirre’s pointing hand.
“We call that Elaine’s river,” said Tirre with a mischievous glance. He gestured toward the dark waters that flowed by. “Since she was a child, she always said she would take the barge, and float down the river one day.”
“Why so?” asked Lancelot politely.
“Oh, Tirre!” protested Elaine. The pink and white had risen to her face, and she was laughing and confused.
“Because it goes down to Camelot, where the knights and ladies are.” Tirre gave a wicked laugh. “And she always wanted a knight of her very own.”
“As do all fair ladies,” said Lancelot courteously. “And one of the fairest, as your sister is, may expect one of the finest knights.”
Too late he saw the brothers exchange a glance and Elaine’s confusion deepen to a rosy blush. A shaft of guilt and distress went through his heart. He had not meant—surely she could not think—
A moment later she was bright-eyed and fluttering as her father drew near.
“News, sons!” cried Sir Bernard, brandishing a scroll as he approached. “There’s to be a great tournament in the Humberlands, on the far side of the wolds.” He smiled at Sir Lancelot. “And if our guest continues to recover his strength, you might all make up a party to ride there for the sport.”
Elaine smiled, and blushed, and smiled again. “You will, sir, won’t you?” she murmured earnestly. “A tournament will be fine exercise when you’re well.”
“Lady—” he murmured, at a loss.
“At least you’ll stay until you’re better again.”
Lancelot bowed his head in mute acknowledgment. “If you say so,” he said at last.
She looked at him, huge-eyed, and laid her hand on his arm. “You can’t leave us now,” she said happily. And once more he was pierced with a sadness he could not explain.
HE KNEW THEN that she loved him, and realized too that he had known it all along. Yet how could she love a knight who had no name? Her father, her brothers too, would never countenance a man from nowhere, a soul in flight. A man who would not, could not, say who he was, perhaps a wastrel, an outlaw, or worse. Sir Bernard would never throw away his cherished only daughter on a passing fancy for a knight of the road.
And he knew in his heart that he had not encouraged her. True, he had noticed the gleaming curtain of fair hair, and the trusting, blue-eyed gaze, as sweet as a child’s. He admired her lissome body as she moved, saw the woman in her calling out to him, and smelled the petal fragrance of her skin. Her innocent freshness revived his battered heart, and she made him feel both wise and young again.
Yet none of it meant anything to him. She was not Guenevere.
Guenevere—
The thought of her raged worse than any fever, and cut deeper than his pain. They had been so dear to one another, dearer than life. Did she hate him for his love, then, to cast him off like this and send him away?
Yet perhaps she was right to try to avoid more pain. She wanted to live in honor and make sure that he could live so too.
How true she is, his thoughts tormented him.
How loyal to Arthur, how loving—
—to him, but not to me—
He forced the thought away.
Guenevere.
She was his lady.
He was her knight.
Whatever she did, nothing could alter that. He could not love Elaine. His heart, his mind, his soul were all elsewhere, given to Guenevere before time began. He had made no advances to Elaine, and he would make none. The girl and her family must see that now.
So when she came and asked him for a favor, he was quite unprepared.
“Whatever lies in my power, lady,” he answered absently.
Too late he saw the pearl-encrusted gauze crushed in her hands. She looked him in the eye as she passed him the scarf.
“Wear my favor at the tournament, sir, when you go to the Humberlands,” she said steadily. “Then all the world will know you fight for Elaine of Astolat.”
CHAPTER 34
With the sun at his back, Merlin watched his shadow moving ahead of him along the narrow way. Idly he played with it, amusing himself by making it swell up like a puff adder, then rear and sting. In the long journey south from the Orkneys, he had needed many diversions such as this. He paused. Of course, he must never forget that Madam Morgan was no mean shape-shifter too. And there was nothing to compare with the venom of her sting.
Morgan.
His silver-gilt eyes flared and turned the color of blood. Morgan was playing with him, he knew that now. Now, if ever, he needed to be Merlin the hawk, and fly above the game. For he could not abandon the hunt for the child.
Child no longer, old fool, Merlin reminded himself with scorn. Old enough now to be a page in a noble house. Without that boyhood training in chivalry, he could never become a squire, and then a knight. And Morgan must want that for a boy born to be king.
Merlin groaned, feeling his thoughts begin to run like rats in their tracks. Many great houses took in young boys as pages. After leaving the court of Queen Morgause, he had moved down the map like a mole, working through them one by one. None of them bore any resemblance to the place wher
e Morgan had once, long ago, given him a fleeting glimpse of her son. Why did he still not know where Mordred could be?
He bunched his fist, and shook it at the sky. When he had had to place Arthur for his knighthood training, he had known all the lords and all their lands and estates, the length and breadth of the isles. That was thirty years ago and more, he admitted grudgingly, so most of them would be dead and gone by now. But some of them kept going, these knight-masters of young lads. Old Sir Ector, Arthur’s foster father, was still training knights the last time he had sent greetings to Arthur’s court.
Sir Ector—Merlin’s scowl softened into a frown. There was none like him for bringing up a boy. Most lords took pages, or squires, or young knights for training, only at that one stage. Sir Ector could steer a boy’s course through all three.
Merlin snarled. Not that Madam Morgan would place her son with him. Arthur’s foster father would be the last man she would choose. No, she would try to keep Mordred as far away from Arthur as she could. Which was why Merlin had renewed hopes of the place he was coming to now.
For the Castle Fils de Dame was, indeed, far away. Buried as it was in the heart of Listinoise, Merlin might have overlooked it on his journey south. But passing through the neighboring kingdom of Gore, he had heard of a Sir Dorward and his mother who lived there. They kept a school for pages which, although small, was admired for miles around.
So he had skirted the land of Terre Foraine, Listinoise’s neighbor to the north. With a glad heart, it had to be said, for there was nothing for a lord of all power there. A spasm of disgust clenched Merlin’s gut. Who would have thought that King Pelles, the King of Terre Foraine, was blood brother to the good old King Pellinore, Arthur’s truest friend? While he lived, Pellinore had ruled Listinoise in the love of all faiths, while the fanatical Pelles insisted his subjects follow only one. Terre Foraine was indeed foreign terrain to those who did not cleave to the God from the east. Merlin shuddered. The Christians had their hooks in King Pelles, body and soul.
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