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

by Sarah Zettel

  “Boy if you do not get out of my way, I will break your head on the stones.”

  Tania managed to get to her feet. The whole right half of her face was scarlet and swollen. “Stand aside, Gawain. You’ve already done enough.” The words held both sorrow and anger. Gawain blanched white and turned to face her.

  “Tania, I swear, I only thought to help. You cannot …”

  But he was not allowed to finish. Lot flung him aside so hard that his head cracked hard against the wall. Lot dove forward and snatched Tania’s wrists and bent them back, driving her down onto her knees. That finally made the young woman gasp in pain, but her eyes remained defiant as she glowered up at him.

  “Name your brat’s father!” screamed Lot. “Name him!”

  “No, father …” Gawain was holding his head. Blood trickled in a thin thread from his brow.

  “No, father.” Tania echoed his words steadily. “You may not command so much of me.”

  “I may command anything of you! You are mine! Mine! You will marry a swineherd if I order it!”

  “No.”

  Lot gave a wordless roar that seemed to shake the stone walls. He seized Tania by her dark hair and hauled her to her feet. She gasped, unable to hold in a cry of pain.

  “Will you blacken my name?” cried Lot, striding forward, forcing Tania to stumble behind him or be dragged along like a sack of flour. “Will you mother whoreson bastards? Make my word a joke among men? You will learn the price! You will learn!”

  The nightmarish procession stormed along the corridor. Gawain stared after them. So did Agravain from his place by the door.

  “What are you doing?” Agravain demanded of his older brother. “Stop him!”

  “He won’t do it,” murmured Gawain. “He wouldn’t. Not his daughter.”

  “You’re a fool, Gawain.” Agravain sprinted down the corridor after his father.

  Gawain stared for a moment at the place where his brother had been, then stumbled into a run to follow.

  Risa wished she could look away. With all her heart she willed herself not to see, but the spell of the mirror held her even more firmly than the sorcerer’s grip and no matter how much she yearned to, she could do nothing but watch helplessly.

  Gawain tried to race down the corridor, but the blows he had taken made him unsteady and he stumbled repeatedly. Ahead of him, Lot dragged Tania through an arched door out into the grey morning. Wind from over the stone battlements lashed his wild hair. He did not break stride, but turned for the narrow stairs that led up to the top of the fortifications.

  “God, no,” Agravain exclaimed. “Father! No! I know who it is!”

  But the wind snatched his words away and Lot climbed the stairs. Tania’s cold demeanor had shattered, and she struggled, trying to break her father’s grip. Tears of pain streamed down her battered face.

  “Stop, please!” begged Agravain racing after them, with Gawain bringing up the rear. “Father, I know who the man is! I know!”

  Lot turned on the narrow stairs, dragging Tania perilously close to the edge. “Who is it then?” he demanded.

  “No, Agravain, don’t,” called Gawain, hurrying up the stairs behind his younger brother. “It’s not for you to say this.”

  “Speak Agravain and I will curse your name to the end of my days,” said Tania through clenched teeth.

  “Tania …” said Agravain desperately.

  “He knows nothing!” she cried. “He just wants to try to cool your blood.”

  “Speak, Agravain,” grated Lot. It was a terrible tableau — the enraged bull of a man, the perilous stairs, the woman on her knees, halfway between the sky and the stones, the two thin boys, each trying to bargain for their sister’s life. “Say who is to die for this defilement.”

  “Agravain!” cried Tania, so many kinds of pain filling her voice.

  “Agravain, don’t. You’ll take away her only chance,” said Gawain.

  “Owein,” said Agravain and as he spoke the name, Risa heard the superiority that would come to be such a marked trait in him. “It is King Owein of North Rheged. I saw them together.”

  His gaze met his sister’s for a heartbeat, and in his eyes, Risa could see he said, “forgive me.” And in hers, she said, “I cannot.”

  Then, Tania laughed. It was a high, incongruous sound made hysterical and horrible by her being on her knees, trying to hold her own hair to ease the pain of her father’s terrible grip.

  “Owein! You thought I was with Owein! Oh, Agravain you are a blind old woman!”

  This time Lot did not cry out, as Risa expected. He just turned up the stairs and marched his daughter toward the top of the fortifications, as remorseless and relentless as the black clouds that bring the hail and thunder.

  “No, Father!” shouted Agravain. “She’s lying! She’s trying to save him! Tell him, Tania! No man who leaves you thus is worth so much!”

  Gawain’s strength had rallied by this time, and he ran up the stairs behind his brother. The walkway of the fortifications was as narrow and treacherous as the stairs had been. Lot bent his daughter across the parapet, clinging still to her long hair, and showing her the whole, horrendous drop below. A wave of dizziness passed over Risa. This was no high wall on a hill. This hall had been built atop a great rock and a jagged, black cliff fell away beneath it, hundreds of ells to the green valley floor.

  “Who is it, Tania?” Lot’s voice was soft and cold as death. “For the last time, who is your whore master?”

  Tania’s face was white as she looked down to the distant valley floor. The wind blew across her face, touching the red weal her father had left. The parapet pressed against her belly, crowding the child she carried there, making it impossible to breathe.

  “No,” she whispered, but what she was saying no to now, Risa could not tell.

  “Father, please,” begged Gawain. “It does not have to be this way. A price can be negotiated to settle all sides. Tania did what she did for the love that weakens a woman’s heart. I came to you with a son’s love of father and sister. Your name is safe if you forgive. If there is shame, it is in what you do here and now.”

  “Stop, Gawain.” Agravain seized his brother’s shoulder. “You’ll make it worse. You know who it was as well as I do. Tell the truth.”

  But Gawain did not stop. “Father, I beg you,” Gawain went down on his knee. There was scarce room on the narrow walkway. “A great king knows mercy and justice. He lets wisdom rule and does not let anger stain his honor.”

  Listen to him, begged Risa in her heart. Mother Mary, make him listen!

  But as Gawain spoke his fine words, his father’s face only darkened. “You say I am the one who stains my own honor?” he spat the words. “You say this is my doing?” the mad light brightened in his eyes.

  “Gawain …” wailed Tania.

  “You would save the slut?” Lot almost laughed and Risa’s blood froze. Move, Gawain, move!

  The knight would have moved, would have taken advantage of the man’s hesitation, but the boy did not know enough. He still wanted to believe in his father, still needed to believe.

  “Then you go after her.”

  And Lot pushed Tania forward. She hung on the edge of the parapet, scrabbling at the stone. Gawain dove for her, seeking to snatch at her sleeves and skirt where they fluttered in the breeze, but his fingertips only brushed the cloth and she fell, screaming long and high as Gawain leaned over the parapet, calling her name again and again, until the scream was gone. There was no sound that reached them from the valley where her body was broken on the unforgiving earth. Neither did Lot make any sound as he turned from his sons and descended the stairs.

  “There,” murmured the sorcerer into Risa’s ear. “There is the stock from which your noble Gawain sprang. There is the flawless knight who could not even save his sister. Does he love you? Does he love Risa? Or does he love another helpless girl whose father is too harsh? When will his pity be turned toward another wronged innocent? And
when will his heart follow?”

  Risa couldn’t breathe. Her throat had closed down and would not respond to the need of her body. Her bosom heaved, but no air filled her lungs.

  “It’s a lie,” she managed to whisper. “You lie.”

  “Perhaps. But the mirror does not. The high arts show only the truth. That is your first lesson.”

  Now she could close her eyes and she did. She wished desperately for what she had seen to be a lie, but she knew it was not. It explained far too much of things Gawain had said, and had not said. It also explained the poison in Agravain’s eyes when she had spoken to him of becoming brother and sister.

  Gawain, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

  It changed nothing, she told herself. It had nothing to do with whether Gawain would come or not. I had nothing to do with his love.

  “Of course not,” said Euberacon as if he read her thoughts clearly. That idea sent a fresh chill through Risa, but she steadied herself against it. Her thoughts showed in her face. That was all.

  “After all,” he went on, with icy pleasantry. “Even if Gawain should fail you, you still have your mother’s love to shield you.” He smiled, a death’s head grin, and in that moment, a new and terrible certainty came to Risa’s heart.

  No. No!

  “But yes, she too is gone. Your disobedience to me cost your mother her life, as you were warned.”

  Inside her mind, Risa screamed. She raged. She wept to Heaven, crying out to God and Mary to give her mother back, that it was not her fault, it was not right, it was not just! It took all the strength remaining in her body to hold herself still. She could do nothing, not here, not now. She would not let Euberacon see her break against the walls he had erected like a bird breaking its wings against the bars of its cage.

  “You may have time to consider what you have seen and heard,” said the sorcerer. “We will return to the board now.” Beneath his words, Risa heard, You may walk or be dragged.

  Risa descended the stairs by her own will, and as she did a new emotion struck her. Shame. Shame that she was not fighting every inch of the way. Shame that she was not forcing him to hurt her, and hurt her badly before he could have even this much from her.

  No. Patience. Having your body broken will not serve. You must find your chance, and you must be ready to take it. For your mother’s sake, if for no others.

  She tried to imagine Gawain’s voice speaking those words to her, but it would not come.

  In the dining hall, nothing seemed to have moved since they left it. The candles had dropped no wax. The dishes had not cooled at all. Euberacon returned to his place at the head of the table and sat almost primly.

  “You will eat,” he told her. “Refuse, and you will starve until your body wastes to the point when no more refusal is possible. I will not warn you again.”

  Risa sat. She took figs in honey, and nuts, and dates. She took a slice of fish and lemons and a ladleful of the golden rice. She did not look at the sorcerer. She swallowed her shame with each elegant and flavorful bite. She sliced off more of the fish, and a leg of a tiny fowl that might have been a quail, but had the taste of a duck roasted in a sweet sauce such as she had never tasted before. It was like honey and lemons, but it was not either.

  Euberacon filled his own plate time and again. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, filling his plate and emptying it again as if he were a starving man. Why would he eat so eagerly? He was a sorcerer, he could have such food with a word.

  Or did it take more than that? Risa had never before considered that magic might take effort. The tales spoke of magic having a cost, of payments and bargains made in return for power … perhaps such a banquet was too expensive to conjure on a whim. It was something to remember. If everything he did had a price, perhaps there was a way to make the cost of her keep too dear.

  Risa sliced a piece of breast from the roasted foul, finished it, laid her hands in her lap for a moment, and then, as if after careful consideration, took one of the pastries and bit into it, finding it full of nuts and honey. She finished it off slowly for it was too rich to eat quickly.

  Then she returned her hands to her lap, and bowed her eyes in modesty, waiting, her sleeves draped over her wounded hands.

  “Good.” Euberacon sounded genuinely pleased. “It is obedience to my word brings all rewards to you now. That is your next lesson. My other servants will take you back to your cell. You will wait in patience until I send for you again.”

  She felt them beside her, left and right, invisible presences, brushing her skin like cobwebs, ready to grab hold of her with their taloned hands. He was showing her his power, showing up her helplessness. Risa turned without a word and walked back into the corridor, following it around the dimming courtyard and back down the stairs. All the while, she felt the invisible ones beside her, in the breeze that fluttered against her cheeks, in the pricking of the hairs on the back of her neck.

  But none of them grabbed her hands. None of them pulled at her sleeves. They were doing just what they had been told. They were taking her back to her cell, and as long as she went that way, they would do nothing else.

  They would not take from her the knife she had removed from the dining table and that she held now in her modestly folded hands, concealed by the flowing sleeve of her festival gown.

  You can never be fast enough, the witch’s voice spoke calmly from memory.

  So you say, Risa answered that memory fiercely. Let me show you what I can do if I must.

  Risa let herself be returned to her cell. She had been given no candle, nor any other way to make a light. The door was closed behind her, and this time she was sure that if she tried it, it would be barred.

  With shuffling steps, Risa found the bed, and lay down upon it. Alone in the silent darkness, she curled around her hidden knife.

  Do you say Gawain will not come for me? That he is weak, and weakness makes him false? You may be right, but his are not the only hands that can strike a blow against you.

  Then there was nothing to do but wait for day and mourn.

  Oh, my mother, I will avenge you. I will.

  The rain began soon after Gawain left Camelot. Light, cold, relentless spring showers soaked his clothing and skin within minutes. They turned the roads first to mud and then to streams running down to join the becks forming in every gully and crevice. He tried to hurry, hoping speed would give him a sense of purpose. Even a false certainty would be better than the bewilderment he felt now.

  He traveled almost exactly as he had when he first found Risa, riding the black gelding Pol in place of the palfrey, and leading Gringolet. He did not know what he would come to. He did not know but there might be a battle or some matter of honor and he would be sorry not to have the steady, trained animal with him, and he wanted Risa to recognize him at once. She’d told him she’d seen the sigil on his shield and knew he was the answer to her prayer. He displayed that shield now, and he prayed to the one whose sign it was to intercede, to let him find her, to have mercy. To understand that he loved her.

  Pol, was less patient with the conditions of travel and whickered and whinnied almost constantly to let his master know the state of his displeasure.

  Gawain had left the high road long ago, and the trails he followed north were mud up to the ankles. Frequently he had to get off the horse and pick his way across the worst of the holes and small swamps. Still the rain came down.

  It was close enough to Camelot that his name and face were well known, and folk were generous when he paused at house or cot, with warm soup for him and dry blankets for the horses, but when he asked of the Green Temple, none had heard its name, not even the oldest graybeards in their corner by the fire.

  Gawain rode on.

  Twilight thickened and worked with the rain to turn the world into a blur of grey. Pol and Gringolet hung their heads and struggled to pull their hooves free from the slopping mud. Stands of trees began to merge with one another to become true forest. Their b
ranches provided some shelter from the rain, but fat drops collected on leaves and fell off, splashing on head and hands, constantly startling the horses until Pol began to balk.

  Feeling he would choke on his impatience, Gawain turned the horses, doubling back to a rickety hut he had before passed by in the hope that the rain would clear. The place smelled of old hay and new rot, but these odors were soon overlaid with the scent of steaming horses as Gawain unharnessed the animals and rubbed them dry. By the time he was finished there was barely enough light left to make a fire by. After many curses, he finally managed to make a small and smoky blaze by which to eat a rude meal of bread and smoked fish. Rain dripped through the roof, making pools of mud on the floor. Gawain shivered, and bowed his head.

  This then is my punishment for arrogance. I accept it. I accept it. But Dear God, send me some sign it is not my doing that makes Risa suffer. Let me know that she will be found and brought safe home. If not by me, then by Arthur. Please, dear Father. Do as you will with me, but do not desert her.

  Gawain huddled by his fire, drawing what warmth he could from the flames and prepared to wait out the night. He tried to make some pleasant vision of the future, but could not, and in the end sank into a fitful dreaming in which Risa ran in and out of his vision, calling his name, but each time he turned toward her, there was only emptiness. Through it all Tania screamed, and screamed again until he could not tell her voice from Risa’s.

  Morning dawned heavy and grey. The woods were as full of dank mist as they had before been full of rain. Gawain readied the horses with stiff hands and an aching head. He knew it to be cold, but he felt hot. Perspiration mixed with the beads of fog on his face.

  Between the mist and the mud, the way was even more difficult than it had been before. There was no way to take his bearings, so Gawain had no choice but to follow the river of muck that in drier times was a narrow, rutted track. Pol seemed no fresher for his night’s rest and even Gringolet walked with his head hung low, his breath blowing out in silver clouds to add to the dense mist that surrounded them. It clung in drops to his hair and face, as wet and cold as the rain had been. His ears had begun to ring and his tongue felt heavy and swollen. The pain in his ribs flared and reached up to join with the pain in his head. He rubbed his eyes repeatedly trying to clear them. The forest was shifting behind the mist, the trees rearranging themselves into more pleasing patterns, skittering across the path to gossip with each other more comfortably. The birds called out, saying that a guest was coming, that he brought news and gifts, and all the world watched him pass by with great interest. Pol shifted uneasily and Gawain slumped forward, barely catching himself before he slid from the saddle. He tried to straighten, but his back had no strength, and he fell forward across the horse’s neck. Pol balked, and Gawain fell groaning into the mud.