Lancelot and I left the castle early each morning every day that I was there and rode up to what I was coming to think of as ‘our clearing’.
Between sword practice and stolen kisses we talked. About Lancelot’s childhood and his years as a knight. About his loyalty to Arthur and his faith in Arthur’s vision of a better future. He told me stories of quests that I knew would one day become legend, and just occasionally we talked of his own self doubts. I learned in those hours we spent together, that he worked so hard to be the best in order to quell the demons inside him that told him one day he would fail.
He told me of a prophecy, a foretelling, made on the day he was born. That one day he would either help raise Camelot to greatness, or cause its downfall. He struggled so hard to make sure it was the former, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that in a way both were true.
If he noticed that we never talked about me and my life he never mentioned it. He asked questions occasionally but I deflected them, or silenced him with a kiss until he forgot all about it.
When we weren’t in our clearing we would often walk through the town again like the first day, and he would tell me stories of some of Camelot’s greatest moments. Some of them had survived, turning into the legends I knew, but others had obviously been lost over the centuries. I didn’t care if I’d heard them before or not, I loved them all.
Only two things darkened those dream-like days. One was Elaine, who every time I saw her looked more and more furious. And the other was that my time in the past would have to end sooner or later. One week had stretched into two, and then to three. Each time Merlin insisted that I would be going home as soon as he could manage it.
I wanted to go home; I needed go home, back to my own time. Late at night I worried about Lance, my Lance, and Wyn and Percy. I had left them facing the wraiths and I had no idea how much time was passing whilst I was away.
But leaving meant leaving Lancelot, and that frightened me. In Camelot I knew how he felt about me. I knew that the feelings I’d been suppressing were real, and that he returned them, but I didn’t know how that would change things when I got back. But I knew I would never stop loving him, no matter what time we were in. And it was love. No matter how crazy and ridiculous it seemed that I could be in love with someone I’d only known for a month or so. I couldn’t deny it. It was outside of my control.
I had reconciled the Lance I knew with Lancelot, they were the same person and I could no longer separate the two sides of him.
But was I one person to Lance or two? Did he recognise the woman he had met in Camelot as the girl he had been sent to protect?
They were questions I couldn’t answer, but they chased round and round in my head until they nearly drove me insane.
So, when Merlin came to my chambers early one morning, I greeted the news that we would leave for the Lake immediately with mixed feelings.
Saying goodbye was out of the question; seeing Lancelot again would only make things harder, so I dressed quickly in my ripped old jeans and followed Merlin down to the courtyard.
“My Lady?” Lancelot arrived at the top of the steps just as I was about to haul myself into the saddle of a horse.
Taking the steps two at a time, he reached me quickly, taking my arm to turn me away from the horse.
“Where are you going?”
I looked towards Merlin but he turned away.
“I’m leaving. I’m going home.”
“Leaving? But you can’t.”
“I have to. People are counting on me. There are things I have to do.”
He looked confused and hurt and it made my heart ache.
“I don’t want you to go.”
I stood on tiptoes to press my lips against his then looked up into his eyes.
“Will I ever see you again?”
A tiny smile crept onto my lips. “Yes. One day, a long time from now. But live your life, Lancelot, because you are going to do amazing things.”
I couldn’t stand it any longer and I turned away, scrambling up into the saddle. Merlin took the reins of my horse and led me away. Even if I had been a better rider, I couldn’t have done it myself. I couldn’t see through the tears.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I don’t remember the ride to the Lake. I barely even remember meeting Nimue there, except for the sad, knowing smile she gave me.
She and Merlin spoke for a short while, speaking in voices too low for me to understand, and then she returned to me.
“Walk into the Lake, Cara,” she told me. “It will take you home.”
I was too numb to question it and I did as she told me, wading out into the cold waters. The water had reached no further than my waist when dizziness overwhelmed me. The world seemed to lurch beneath my feet and I closed my eyes to stop the churning of my stomach.
“Cara.” Lance’s voice cut through the air.
My eyes flung open and there he was, charging into the water towards me.
I was facing back towards the shore, the same gently sloping bank where I had first met Merlin. Stood above me were Wyn and Percy, with Merlin a few paces in front of them. Close behind Wyn stood Vivian, a smirk on her perfect lips.
My view of them was obscured as Lance reached me. He grabbed my shoulders, spinning me to face him then I was in his arms, my face buried in his chest.
I don’t know how long I stood like that, waist deep in the water, listening to the beating of Lance’s heart. As I clutched him, I shivered.
He took a step backwards, looking down at me carefully.
“Can we get out of the water?” I asked with a weak smile. “It’s really cold.”
Chuckling, he took my hand and led me up the bank. The moment we emerged from the water my clothes were bone dry.
“Good to have you back,” Wyn said with a grin, as Percy slapped me on the shoulder.
I smiled back then turned to look at Vivian. She was still smirking, looking incredibly pleased with herself. I’d thought of hundreds of things I’d say to her when I saw her, but when it came to it there was only one thing I could say.
“Thank you.”
She blinked in surprise but I’d turned to Merlin before she could speak.
His eyes flickered with understanding. “You saw the Round Table?”
I nodded. “I saw Camelot. It was magnificent.” I frowned. “How long have I been gone?”
“About twenty-four hours,” Merlin replied.
I shook my head. It was impossible to grasp. For me almost a month had passed, for them, barely a day. I wondered how different I looked, how much that month had changed me.
They’d built a fire half-way up the bank and we gathered around it.
“So, what happened? With the wraiths?”
Lance shrugged. “They had no interest in us. Once you’d gone they withdrew. We knew what had happened to you, so we grabbed Excalibur and headed straight for the Lake.”
I wanted to ask him there and then how much he remembered of meeting me, but I couldn’t find the words. Instead I spoke to Merlin.
“What now?”
A smile crossed his lips. “We rest. Tomorrow we plan.”
As the others set about fixing supper I closed my eyes.
Arthur?
I’m here, Cara.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I was shocked to find that I’d missed him. Camelot was truly amazing.
I told you it was. I remember you, you know. Though Merlin never told me who you were, I always knew you were a part of my future. I remember the wonder in your eyes. It inspired me.
I smiled to myself. You were so young.
You came in the early part of my reign. I think that is why your wonder struck me so strongly.
“Cara?” Lance’s fingers touched my arm and I opened my eyes. “Food is ready.”
After we’d eaten I sat quietly, staring into the flames. Wyn and Vivian were talking quietly. I could hear her musical laugh every now and then. Percy was still eating.
/> Merlin moved across the fire to sit beside me.
“You’ve changed, Cara.”
I smiled up at him. “I know. I think it was being there, seeing Camelot. But it’s made it harder too. Having met Arthur, it’s so much worse to know how he died.”
“I know, Cara. I know. I knew what was to come, and if I could have, I would have changed his fate. I would have laid down my life if I could have saved his.”
“But you couldn’t?” It wasn’t really a question.
Merlin shook his head, an innocent gesture so full of pain. “They say no man can change his destiny, but I least of all. I saw a thousand futures and all of them were the same. Arthur died at Mordred’s hand. No force on earth could change it. Not even I, with all my magic, could have saved him. Though to the last I tried.”
“You love him.” I glanced over to where Lance and the others on the far side of the fire. “You all love him so much. I do too I think…but I don’t understand why.”
“Because he saw a future most could only dream of, and he fought to the end to make it happen. His was a land of peace, where all men are equal, where honour and chivalry win out.”
“But there isn’t peace. All men aren’t equal – not really…”
“And so we shouldn’t fight for it? We should just give up and let the darkness win?”
“I…”
“No, Cara. We must continue to fight. We must keep faith that there is a great future out there. That peace and all that it entails can be achieved. And men like Arthur give us hope. Most of us dream small dreams, others dream so big they encompass the world. They dream enough for all of us. They dream that the future can be changed and they carry the rest of us with them in that dream. And maybe they change the world a lot, or maybe they change it just a little. But they change it. And each small change takes us one step closer to that future. Arthur’s golden age did not last, but many of his ideas, his dreams of the future did. He changed the world. And that is why we love him. Because he dreamt for all of us.”
Merlin left me alone then, going down to stare into the waters of the Lake as he often did. I sat lost in thoughts of what the world could have been like if Arthur hadn’t died when he did. And I felt a surge of hatred towards Morgana and things she had done.
Sudden movement out of the corner of my eye made me turn my head, and I saw Lance rising quietly to his feet.
I watched him pad away into the trees and for a moment I sat frozen with indecision. Did I really want to know?
None of the others even glanced my way as I rose to my feet and followed him.
The trees didn’t part the way they normally did, and after a few minutes I was hopelessly lost. I tried to retrace my steps and just got even more turned around.
Eventually, I did the only thing I could do. “Lance?” Silence. “Lance?” I called a little louder.
Off to my left the trees rustled and I froze. Then there he was. The dappled sunlight breaking through the trees did strange things to his clothes, or maybe to my eyes so that one moment he was in jeans and leather jacket and the next it seemed like he was wearing armour. Or maybe it was just that I saw both sides of him now, like two faces of the same coin.
“Are you following me?” He stopped walking and leant against the trunk of the nearest tree, keeping a careful distance between us.
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe.”
He smirked and my heart gave an uneven stutter. “You’ll get yourself lost.”
“I wanted to talk.”
The smirk froze on his face and his shoulders tensed. “Ok.”
Sighing, I sunk to the ground, crossing my legs under me. “Did you know?”
He took a step away from the tree. “Did I know what?”
“About what Vivian was going to do to me?”
He took another step, dropping to sit opposite me. He didn’t look at me, keeping his eyes fixed on his fingers as they tugged at the grass.
“I knew you would end up back then, but I didn’t know when or how.”
“So you do remember me?”
His fingers stopped tugging on the grass, clenching into fists. For a long moment I didn’t think he was going to reply, but when he did it was a faint whisper. “Yes.”
My heart skipped another beat. “Tell me…”
He finally looked up at me, his blue eyes impossible to read. “Tell you what?”
“Everything.”
A snort escaped his lips. “That’s a pretty broad topic.” He raked one hand through his hair and sighed. “Everything. Like the first time I saw you in Arthur’s Court? This strange girl in the outlandish clothes?”
I could only nod, my heart hammering in my chest.
“I remember it – you. Not all my memories of that life are so clear, but those stand out. I remember the way you looked at me. Like you knew everything about me. And I remember thinking that you were the most unusual, beautiful woman I’d ever seen.” He looked up at me and smiled, and I felt myself relax. “I knew then that I had to know more about you. And of course, you turned up to supper looking more incredible than before. And you ignored me.”
“I didn’t ignore you,” I said before I could help myself.
He smirked. “Ok, not ignored, but you didn’t act like other ladies of the court. When Elaine pulled me away, it didn’t seem to bother you. I watched you all night, laughing and joking with Gwain. I hated him so much that night.
“So I sought you out. Something I’d never had to do before. Women sought my attention, not the other way around.”
“Arrogant much?” But I smiled as I said it.
“Yes, very,” he replied seriously. “I was young and sure of myself. I’d been a knight just four years but already I was admired and respected and it went to my head. But in your dismissal of me I saw all my own doubts. Maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought.” He trailed off for a moment and then shook himself. “That first morning with you opened my eyes. You treated me so differently; you teased me and laughed at me. And yet the whole time there was this look in your eyes, like you thought I was some kind of dream. You were so full of contradictions and so beautiful, I couldn’t help falling for you.”
To hear him say it made my breath catch in my throat and I had to swallow hard.
“But you know all this. You know what happened next. Our trip to the forest, a kiss that seemed to move the world under my feet. Those wonderful, perfect few weeks And then – you left me.”
His jaw was clenched and once again he wouldn’t look at me.
“The day I watched you leave with Merlin was possibly the worst day of my life. In my head I had already begun to picture a future with you, and then you were gone. I felt like I lost something the day you left, like a part of me went with you. When Merlin returned I begged him to tell me where you’d gone. Pleaded with him to tell me where you came from. He refused, saying only that one day I would see you again.”
He forced his eyes back to meet mine and the pain in them nearly killed me. I wanted to wash it away, and it hurt that I’d been the one to cause it. “So I waited. Everyday I waited for you to come back. Every time visitors came to Camelot I would think, just for an instant, that it would be you. But you never came. And all the while there was Elaine, reminding me that you had left me, as though hoping I would suddenly come to my senses and decide you weren’t worth waiting for.”
“But there’s one thing I don’t understand.” I hesitated and then said the name I had sworn I wouldn’t say in front of him. “Guinevere.”
He laughed bitterly. “I was getting there. Guinevere. Of course, we’d all heard about Arthur’s would be Queen. They said she was the fairest woman in all the land. The day she arrived in Camelot, the day she walked into Arthur’s court I thought I was going to die. How could it be? How could the woman I loved so much be destined to be my Queen? What a cruel twist of fate.”
“What?” I was totally confused.
He smiled. “Don’t you see? You h
ave some of Arthur in you, of course, but you are Guinevere’s descendent too. And you are so like her. The same hair, the same eyes, the same smile. I thought she was you.”
I gasped in sudden understanding, but he continued as though he hadn’t heard me.
“Of course, I realised quite quickly that she wasn’t you. There were differences enough as soon as I looked properly, and you were different enough in the way you act. But still, it was enough that even as the years passed when I looked at her, I saw you. And as the years passed it grew less and less likely that you would return.” His expression grew sadder then, his lips pressed together in a tight line. “Perhaps it would have continued like that, I would have lived the remainder of my life taking what little comfort I could from my Queen’s face, seeing you in her eyes. If not for Elaine.
“Elaine, who was jealous of you and the lingering hold you had over me. Of everyone in the court she alone saw what I had seen, your similarity to the Queen. And seeking revenge she acted. She drugged my wine, just enough that my mind was befuddled and sent her maid to me. Linna came to tell me that you had returned, and that she would take me to you. Drugged and filled with impossible hope, when she took me to the Queen’s chambers I saw only what I wanted to see. I had only just swept you into my arms and kissed you when the illusion was shattered. Elaine had gone to Arthur - and I’m sure you know the rest. I was exiled, Guinevere sent to a monastery, even though we both proclaimed her innocence. And my entire world crumbled.”
“Oh god.” The words lodged in my chest finally made it to my mouth. A sob followed them. “Oh god, it was all my fault. Camelot fell because of me. If I had never – “
Lance caught my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. His eyes smouldered with anger.
“No. Don’t. Don’t ever think that. You are not to blame. You did not force me to fall in love with you. You didn’t make me dwell on a dream instead of focusing on living my life, just as you told me to.”
The Last Knight (Pendragon Book 1) Page 19
