In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy)

by Sarah Zettel

“I know. But what appears as drunkenness in some men … in me, is restlessness.”

  “You will make yourself ill, and then be no good to anyone.”

  He stepped back and bowed with a courtly flourish. “With my lady’s permission, I will walk a little yet, and then, I swear upon mine eyes, that I will seek my bed. I have no desire to topple onto a Saxon sword because I’ve fallen asleep in the saddle.”

  Risa found she could not even smile at that. She just returned his bow with a curtsey and a studiously grave face that she hoped would be taken for a dry jest in its own right. Turning, she gathered up her hems. To stay a moment longer would be to utter words she could not take back.

  But Gawain’s voice came again, freezing her in her place. “Never be sorry for speaking openly with me, Risa.”

  “God be with you on the morrow, Gawain,” was all the answer she had. Then, because she could not bear to stay a moment longer, she hurried away.

  It was dark in the women’s quarters, forcing Risa to pick her way to her bed with extreme caution. As it was, she prodded more than one sleeping body with her toes, only to be swatted at, or softly cursed. She did not even try to apologize.

  At last, she reached that little island of wood and feather beds that was her own and crawled up onto it. The woolen dress was made for one who had no waiting women, so she was able to shuck it easily. The night’s cold drafts moved across her skin.

  She had thought to fall asleep as soon as she laid down, but instead, she felt more wakeful than ever. Perhaps something of Gawain’s restlessness had infected her.

  Or perhaps it was just something of Gawain.

  Risa stared out into the dark. How did people fall in love? How did one know it had happened? She did not feel faint or inclined to fall to her knees and beat her breast when she thought of him. Gawain had given her no token to swoon over. Nor had he sung her any poem, sent word by any messenger or lingered beneath her window, nor asked for her sleeve — not that she had one of her own to spare him — or done any of the things lovers in the epics did. Nor was she certain she could perform such miracles as, oh, wearing out three pairs of iron shoes walking the world in search of him, should he disappear.

  But if this was not love in her, what was it?

  She remembered sitting at her mother’s feet while mother combed her hair, patiently picking out tangles with an ivory comb, tugging gently but almost never pulling.

  “He will be a good man,” mother said. “Of good family. Your father and I will see to it. And when he comes, you will open your heart to him, and learn what is good in him. From this, love will come.”

  “Was that how it was with you and father?” She asked, leaning her head against mother’s knee.

  The comb paused, and mother laid her hand on Risa’s hair. “No. When I saw your father … it was sudden. Like lightning.” She shifted, and the comb returned to its work, picking quickly, gently at a snarl. “But lightning is no guarantee of happiness, my dear. Sometimes all it brings is a roll of darkening thunder. Life is a long journey and slow understanding is the surer road.”

  It was a good thing to say, and meant lovingly, and now that Risa knew so much more of the way things were between mother and father, she understood why it was said. Memory of home and her mother only brought fresh pangs to her bewildered heart.

  Risa rubbed her frigid hands together and tucked them under the blanket. They were growing chapped from her days out in the wind, too long holding Thetis’s reins, too long working her bow. Lady Pacis had smooth hands that looked to work little more than threads for the finest tapestries. Come to that, she had not seen Lady Pacis on the walls today. She would have thought that was the best place for that fine lady to catch a glimpse of her hero.

  Am I jealous now? Oh, God and Christ.

  This was ludicrous. It was childish. A war band sat outside the walls waiting for their chance to swarm over the dykes, batter down the gates and take all they could carry, including Risa and any other woman they could reach. They had a witch helping them, and she had a sorcerer waiting for her.

  As if these weren’t worries enough, she was wringing her hands because the thedu’s wife’s niece had an eye for the High King’s nephew.

  And what of Vernus? Risa huddled in on herself. How long had it been since she had thought of him? She had let her heart get so out of order, she had forgotten that she meant to marry him, that he was going to speak to his father to speak to her father …

  Would Vernus come to court to fetch her if she asked him to? The king could marry them. He might even be able to force father to pay her dower. It could all be done quickly, and that would be an end to her pining for Gawain.

  Would it?

  Risa wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them to her as if she were a small girl. She had to keep her mind on staying alive, on helping in the protection of her protectors and lying here mooning in the dark would only leave her more exhausted on the morrow.

  But, Mother Mary, I’m so lonely.

  She had never before been among so many strangers. When she was sent to Clywd for fostering, she was greeted by family and surrounded by cousins. Soon she had place and friendship. At her father’s hall all the surrounding crofters and freemen knew her name, and if they did not know her face, they knew her at once by her dress and her manner, as she knew them. She knew who she was and how to act and what to do.

  Here, she was no one. She had no kin, no ties to any, except Gawain, and those ties were suspect. She could see that plainly enough in the eyes of the other women. She was unknown and while not entirely unwelcome, not wholly welcome yet either, whatever their protestations. They did glance at her from the corner of their eyes, as if she were a servant who might be thieving. That was as far as it would go, at least while every hand was needed in Pen Marhas’s defense, but it was there, and it would remain since not even battle could halt gossip.

  It was nothing. It would pass. If she and Gawain lived, if tomorrow and the day after that came, they would leave, and they would go to court and she would tell her story to the queen, and then … and then …?

  Risa found she could not dream so far ahead. For a long time, she stared into the darkness while the women sighed and snored around her, but she saw nothing ahead save the night.

  Outside, the rain began.

  Gawain watched as Risa vanished into the hall, swallowed more quickly by the night’s darkness than by the solid doors.

  He had lied. He would not seek his bed, not for hours yet. When the battle was done, he would sleep the night through again, but not until then. That was how God had made him, and he knew well enough by now there was nothing to be done about it. Normally, he would not have even come behind the inner walls, but Gringolet was favoring his forehoof and Gawain wanted to see to his charger personally and make doubly sure the stallion had proper shelter for the night. Now he was trapped in this small yard, with nothing to do but prowl its confines.

  He climbed the palisades and visited with the sentries, grizzled men and nervous boys, glad to see him and ready to be cheered by a small jest and a brave word from Arthur’s man. They wanted to know about the messengers to Camelot, when he thought they would reach the court, and what response Arthur would send. Gawain answered as fairly as he could, although everyone within the sound of his voice knew that comforting guesses were all he had to give. The way through hill and wood was dangerous, even without the Saxons

  Even without their witch, who had somehow caught up with Harrik, Gawain was now certain.

  Perhaps Risa killed her, he thought, looking out toward the hills, toward the faint stars of the Saxon campfires. Perhaps that raven was the witch disguised, and with her death Harrik is free from whatever glamour has taken him, and he will come as soon as he can to help us.

  But in his heart, he knew that was a vain hope. Witches were not so easily defeated. They did not present themselves for a clean fight, no. They hid, they schemed, they sent their servants and their spells, and
although a man might think he had at last rid himself and his family of the danger, yet they would come back.

  The witch was still out there, as was Harrik, and in the distant darkness, Risa’s sorcerer.

  Risa.

  He hoped sleep had found her. He hoped she knew some ease of heart in a bed that was, at least for this night, safe and warm. He wished … he wished so many things he thought heart and soul would overflow.

  When the rain began, great, fat drops falling like pebbles into the dust of the yard, he sought shelter in the stable rather than the hall.

  Gringolet had a stout stall, clean straw and a warm blanket on the back. The place was full of the warm smells of leather, contented animals and clean straw. The stallion’s limp had proved to be nothing more than a small stone, easily remedied. The stallion must have been exhausted, however, because neither Gawain’s step nor his scent roused him from his sleep.

  Overhead, men and boys snored in the hayloft. Above them, rain pattered on the thatched roof, making its straw rustle like a thousand small fingers searching through it, seeking … what?

  Risa would know. Some snatch of poem or song about rain and searching.

  He had not been the least surprised when he found she had gone out on the walls. Furious, yes, but not surprised. If he had his way, she would have been behind the stoutest walls Pen Marhas had to offer, waiting for the end of the fighting and their rescue. Risa, however, could no more hide and wait than he could sleep during battle. It was not in her nature.

  But what is?

  She was not like any woman he had known before, not even the queen. He would not have said it were possible for one woman to possess beauty, learning and nobility along with courage and quick-thinking that would do a Roman soldier proud. And the way she sometimes looked at him, as if there was much she would say, much she would do, if she dared, if modesty permitted.

  If only she were of higher birth. If only her father were not a fool and a coward to have sold off his daughter’s body and soul in a devil’s bargain. Then they might be free, then …

  Then, what? Gawain seemed to hear his brother’s voice speaking from his mind. She is what she is, and you are what you are. And for once this woman you’re mooning over remembers that.

  Gawain sighed and bowed his head down until it rested on the back of his arm. God help me, it’s happening again, isn’t it?

  Love and Gawain were no strangers. Love came to him as often as the tide came to the shore. But not love he could have, not love that would grace his life until God himself chose to part them at death. His heart had no discretion and very little sense. It reached out to sadness, it reached out to need, and it did not care for marriage or rank, or any other of men’s laws. It charged up to such walls time and again, only to break itself against their stones.

  There was no comfort in the knowledge that he would marry one day, because he must. Arthur would pick the lady, and she would be good and probably beautiful. She would definitely be wealthy and of rank and connection. Would his heart cease to break itself over others once the betrothal was made? Could he finally harness that part of his nature and do his duty, and produce an heir? Some days he thought he could, but other days …

  Other days, it seemed to Gawain as if God had decided the legitimate line of Gododdin must end. Agravain showed no interest in women. Which was just as well, as he was sour enough to turn sweet love to vinegar. Gareth was too bound up in his worship of Lancelot and the way of arms to give thought to the maidens who sighed so loudly over him from the fences by the practice yard. Geraint, now, stolid and unimaginative, Geraint, would marry who he was told and do his duty as he knew it. Perhaps the hope of heirs lay with him. If there was any hope.

  If we are truly seeds of our father’s tree, perhaps would be better if there was no such hope.

  The memory of a woman’s screams filled Gawain’s mind. Abruptly, he left Gringolet’s stall and strode to the stable door, and out into the rain, so that he might run across the yard to escape those screams.

  The great hall was a place of dim light and muffled sounds. Families slept on blankets beside their wounded men, who tossed and moaned in their pain and tried to find rest. The fires had been allowed to burn down to coals, but they had not been banked for the night allowing the wounded some warmth. A woman tended one of the hearths now, adding another few sticks of wood to smolder on the coals. She must have heard his footsteps, for she straightened to face him.

  Pacis.

  She looked grave and wan, as did all the people of Pen Marhas’s hall after this day’s battle. The fresh flame showed her face clearly enough for Gawain to know she was not in the least surprised to see him, that she had been waiting for him.

  He collected his manners and bowed. “Lady Pacis.”

  “Lord Gawain,” she whispered his name and curtsied. Her dress, he noted, was clean and fine, laying lightly against her form, and her hair shone in the firelight as he remembered. All about her was as he remembered.

  He found he did not dare take one step toward her. He had faced a sea of armed men from dawn to dusk, and this one woman left him paralyzed. “You are well?” he asked.

  She sighed, looking at the freshening fire. “As can be at such a time, yes.”

  “Your husband?”

  She said nothing.

  “You should be asleep.” You should not be here where I can see your sadness and remember the warmth of you in the afternoon when you would laugh and lean close to me so I could smell the sandalwood you used to perfume your hair. Do you still smell of sandalwood, Pacis?

  “What is one night, more or less?” He thought she would say something more, but she just looked back over her shoulder at the makeshift hospital the hall had become. She pulled a rush light from the basket near the hearth and kindled it in the fire. With only a glance at him, she strode swiftly toward the far end of the hall, toward the work rooms and living chambers.

  I do not have to follow, Gawain tried to tell himself. But he knew that he did. He had known such a moment must come ever since he saw Pacis enter Bannain’s hall. Unless he himself had died in battle, Fate could not permit it to be otherwise. Neither, he was sure, could Pacis.

  She led him to the spinning room. When he entered, she was carefully placing the rush light in a wall sconce. The soapy scent of its tallow mixed with the warm smell of the wool that waited in great piles, some of it cleaned and carded and waiting to be turned into thread, some of it still raw from the backs of the sheep. Spindles and looms lurked like fantastic monsters in the shadows among the chairs and stools that waited for the women to come and occupy them.

  He remembered what Risa told him about how dull the work of spinning was and wondered what stories had been told in this room, and who had told them, and what Pacis had said and heard here.

  She faced him now, standing directly under the light. He stepped across the threshold, and did not close the door. Pacis waited for a moment, and when Gawain did not move, she reached for the latch.

  “Don’t,” he said, ashamed at how it sounded like a plea.

  She did not listen. She closed the door firmly. “I wished to speak with you without other ears to hear.”

  Without other ears, without other eyes. Oh, Pacis, shadows were ever our home.

  Remember, he counseled himself. Remember what she said, what she did. Memory returned some strength to him. “Why would you wish for that?”

  Her face tightened, as if she sought to close off part of herself. Her long hands twisted together. “So that I could tell you how much I have repented what I did to you.”

  Gawain found he had no answer to that, only more memories; of her eyes and voice and skin and scent. Of love filling his heart with courage and certainty. Of the last night, the last time, when she had laughed and turned him away. But there had been so much else, so many shared moments of love. Through the years that had followed, when he could bear to think on it, he had told himself some of those things must have been real t
o her as well as to him. It seemed he had been right.

  Pacis sat on one of the stools, her hands in her lap. She would not look at him. “What I did was cruel.”

  “No, not cruel.” The words were out of Gawain’s mouth before he could stop them. How could he say that? After all the pain, after all the times he tried and failed to reclaim what he had known with another woman in her place. But he could smell the sandalwood now, as if from a long ago dream, and it told him there was so much more to remember besides that last night. What had come after, was that her fault? Didn’t the blame lie with him?

  What Pacis saw in his face, Gawain could not tell. He had moved closer to her, but he did not know when that had happened. She could reach out now and take his hand in hers. Her fingers were warm, the skin of her palms smooth and soft. Not as soft as the skin at the hollow of her throat. Gawain suddenly felt very tired. The act of standing seemed a great effort. He wanted to kneel, to lean close and rest his head against her, to feel her arms holding him close in safety and promise, as it had been once, before.

  It took all his strength to pull his hand from hers and step away. He had none left to form any conciliatory words.

  “I knew you loved me, and I knew that love to be sincere, and I did what I did despite that.”

  Do not look at her. Do not look into those deep eyes that were so merry, that shone so brightly as they teased the boy you were. Do not believe. Do not remember all the othe nights, all the other shadows. “There was a time I would have given all I had to hear those words from you, Pacis.”

  “I was raw as you, and far more frightened. I had never met my husband until the wedding day, and when he never came to me more than to consummate the vows …” Her voice caught hard in her throat, and despite himself, Gawain looked again at her to see she had bowed her head. “You neither need nor want to know any of this, I am certain. I only wanted you to know that I am truly sorry.”

  Do not go closer. Leave here. “Thank you, Pacis.”

  The silence fell so thick and so deep, Gawain could hear Pacis’s breathing, low and urgent, as if she were trying not to cry.