The Book of Mordred

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Kiera saw Gawain put a hand on Mordred's arm. They stood near enough that Kiera could clearly see the whitened scar on Gawain's right hand. The little finger was missing, cut off during a sword fight, a sword fight Gawain had subsequently won.

  If Arthur saw how angry Mordred was, he gave no indication.

  If Mordred saw how desperate Arthur was, he gave no indication either.

  Mordred turned to Lancelot. "And you," he said, "have been Bayard's unwitting dupe before. What makes you think that Bayard didn't talk to Pinel after your dinner?"

  "I didn't!" Bayard protested.

  Arthur said, "These endless old feuds, this refusal to give in no matter the cost—will destroy us all."

  In the end, Arthur sent Bayard away from Camelot. Not banishment, the King stressed, but for his own safety till tempers cooled.

  It was a solution that pleased no one.

  The people around Kiera got up, stretching, talking, comparing opinions. Between them Kiera caught occasional glimpses of Mordred at the front of the Hall, still glowering despite his brothers and his friends gathered around him. Kiera followed his gaze and settled once again on Bayard. She forced herself to look at Bayard as he spoke quietly and earnestly to his friends. She had never met him before—everyone acknowledged it was the first time in years he had come to court.

  And yet she had seen his face once before.

  She had seen it that day on the hillside, white and drained of blood, with lifeless eyes staring up into the swirling gray mist.

  CHAPTER 4

  Kiera was in the field of gray mist again.

  At first, all she heard was a loud, hollow sound: THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

  My heart, she thought. Something was wrong with her heart.

  But the sound also came from outside her, a steady wooden drumming.

  Eventually she realized that what she heard was the clash of swords—laboriously slow, as though the fighters were hurt or weary. And it came from all around her: many, many fighters.

  After that she could make out stifled moans and frantic cries. A riderless horse broke through the mist. It came within an arm's length of trampling her, close enough that the breeze of its passing rippled her hair. She gasped, and choked on the bitter taste of smoke.

  She turned her head to rub her burning eyes and saw the body of a knight on the ground, his eyes open and glazed.

  Bayard, she thought.

  Now he had a name and she shouldn't be afraid.

  But it wasn't Bayard. It was King Arthur.

  Oh no, she thought. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

  Not the King who had always been so kind and gentle and good.

  In horror she leaned closer to the corpse, and one of its eyes slowly winked at her. She slumped back, her heart racing to the same beat of the insistent pounding that was somehow louder than the other, closer sounds.

  Hesitantly, afraid, she called, "Mordred!"

  He turned, always there, hut his hand was to his side and he staggered, so slowly, blood running over his fingers and down his arm.

  "Mordred!" she screamed. She wanted to run to him but something tripped her, something held her down. She twisted herself and saw the dead knight's gauntleted hand clasped around her ankle. Except that this time, it wore Agravaine's face. "Agravaine," she whimpered.

  She couldn't get loose, and something was approaching: The hanging noise got louder, faster, more urgent, and she had never been afraid of Agravaine before. "Agravaine, no!"Her muscles were all tensed, but her limbs wouldn't move. A high-pitched moan made its way out from the back of her throat.

  "Kiera, Kiera, hush, dear. You have been dreaming."

  Kiera sat up. She had to stop to think before she recognized it was sweet, plain-faced Hildy who leaned over her in the bed, her hair hanging down in disarray. It took another few moments for Kiera to remember where she was: in the bedroom shared by Queen Guinevere's ladies-in-waiting. Somehow she'd forgotten the most important thing that had happened in her life—being chosen to train as one of the Queen's ladies.

  In a soothing voice Hildy said, "Go back to sleep. It was just a dream."

  But it wasn't.

  "Agravaine," Kiera said—whimpered—her voice shaking.

  "The King's nephew?" Hildy smiled. "Home and safe, and in his own bed." She considered. "Or somebody else's."

  Was that all people around here cared about?

  Always the smirking. Always men and women and beds. She didn't like thinking about it—Guinevere and Lancelot, they whispered. Mordred and Nimue.

  Mordred and Alayna, they had probably said, when she'd been too young to understand it.

  Agravaine and somebody.

  Surely there was more to growing up than that.

  Hildy said: "Quiet now, before you wake the others." Though she was probably more worried about the Queen in the adjoining chamber, she nodded toward the rest of the room where the other ladies-in-waiting slept—two or three to a bed, for that was the best way to keep warm.

  "But what was that noise?" Kiera insisted. "That banging noise?"

  "Shhh. There's nothing, dear. Listen."

  Kiera did listen, and heard only her own heavy breathing and one of the other ladies who murmured in her sleep.

  "See," Hildy said gently, not mocking the way some of the others had a tendency to do, "just a dream. Sometimes it is hard, the first few nights away from your mother."

  My mother has nothing to do with this, Kiera came close to telling her. But her mother had begged her to please, please try to make friends. She bit back her answer, realizing even as she did so that Hildy would mistake it for a homesick gulp.

  Hildy patted her hand, pulled the blanket up to her neck, and started to lie back.

  Then stopped at the loud noise that came from the Queen's room, someone pounding on the heavy oaken outer door.

  "Open up in the name of the King!" someone—Mordred?—shouted.

  No, Kiera begged. Go away.

  There was a slight scurrying noise from next door, but no answer. And Arthur was away. Arthur was on a hunting trip.

  Guinevere and Lancelot, they said. Guinevere and Lancelot.

  Was it true, the Queen and Camelot's best knight?

  The banging resumed—not the honest sound of knocking, but with a metallic ring to it: Someone, in the middle of the night, within the very heart of the King's castle at Camelot, was using a gauntleted fist or the hilt of a sword.

  Another voice spoke up, this time with the stiff formality of chivalry. "Sir Lancelot Dulac, wit we well ye are in the Queens chamber and we are fourteen of us, on allowance of the King. Open the door for thou canst not escape."

  Perhaps Hildy recognized Agravaine's voice. Maybe the banging was enough. She rolled out of the bed, took a step backwards from Kiera, and made the sign of the Cross. The others were beginning to stir at the noise, groggily asking what was happening. Somebody started to cry.

  Wasn't anybody going to do something?

  Kiera swung out of bed and went to the door that connected their room with the Queen's. "My Lady," she called softly, not to alert the men in the hallway.

  "Do not be alarmed," Guinevere answered. "There is no danger." Kiera could hear her say something else, in a quiet voice, to someone in the room with her. Guinevere and Lancelot.

  The pounding started again, and the cries for Sir Lancelot to show himself. Nobody was smirking now.

  One of the Queen's women stifled a startled squeak, then pointed at the other door in their own room, the one that opened onto the hallway. The latch shook as someone surreptitiously tried the lock.

  "My Lady," Kiera whispered, even though the door was locked. "Someone is trying to get in here."

  The door connecting to the Queen's room flew open. Lancelot stood there, dressed in rumpled shirt and breeches, while Guinevere, in the background, pulled on a dressing gown.

  Oh no, Kiera thought. She had assumed the Queen's innocence would protect her.

  The room had gone perf
ectly quiet. Even the outside door was still now. Lancelot went to the window, where he leaned out to check the distance to the ground and to examine the surrounding walls. No armor, Kiera saw, no weapons.

  He turned to Guinevere, who stood in the doorway, and shook his head. She was pulling her long, graying auburn hair out from underneath her dressing gown.

  "Nobody will get hurt," the Queen told her women. "Simply stay calm and out of the way."

  "Traitor knight!" someone from outside shouted. "Traitor Queen!"

  On the other side of their door there was a clank of metal, perhaps a shield brushed against a stone wall, or an armored toe stubbed.

  "They're going to kill you," one of the women whispered. "They're going to kill all of us."

  "Nonsense," Guinevere said.

  But she didn't look as though she thought it was nonsense.

  Lancelot ran his fingers through his hair, which was also graying. Mordred despised Lancelot, Kiera knew that. In her loyalty to Mordred she had always felt obliged to hate Lancelot, too. But she had never been able to muster more than a vague resentment, for Mordred's sake. And now she felt a grudging respect for the old man. Go away, Mordred and Agravaine, she thought. You have gone too far.

  Lancelot, by the window, turned to Guinevere, by the door. "I can do nothing without a sword," he whispered.

  "I know," Guinevere answered.

  "If I just give myself up, once Arthur gets back to court—"

  "They would never let you live that long, and you know it."

  "I can do nothing without a sword," he repeated, an edge to his quiet voice.

  And, once again, with that stillness: "I know," Guinevere said.

  "My Lady," Kiera said, "Sir Lancelot. That's Sir Mordred and Sir Agravaine out there. They would not—"

  Hildy interrupted with a hiss: "She knew! She spoke in her sleep, and she knew! This is some sort of trap."

  "No," Kiera said, shocked that Hildy could think that of her. She didn't know what to make of the look Guinevere gave her. "I didn't know. I only—"

  Somebody shoved her from behind, pulling on her hair.

  "Stop that!" Guinevere commanded.

  Kiera looked from her to Lancelot, then around the room. They were all standing huddled together. Some of the ladies actually clung to each other, but even the rest stood close; the Queen and Lancelot, with the length of the room between them, still—for the moment—had each other. Only she suddenly stood alone, and the physical distance that separated her from them was the least of it. "I did not know. It was just a dream."

  Lancelot accepted it, she could tell from his eyes. Perhaps it came from having known Merlin: a habit of seeing the impossible and believing without explanation. For a moment he rested his hand on her head. But he didn't muss her hair, the way Agravaine was accustomed to; instead he put finger to lips for silence and motioned Guinevere to go to the hallway door.

  The Queen waited with her hand on the latch, while Lancelot yanked a blanket off one of the beds and wrapped it around his arm.

  Protection, Kiera realized. He was expecting them to come at him with weapons. She still wanted to say that they all were wrong—that Mordred and Agravaine wouldn't do anything like that—but he gave a quick nod.

  Guinevere yanked the door open.

  The knight on the other side tumbled in. Kiera, from where she stood, could see that he was alone: The other men were still gathered at the Queen's door. The knight was, after all, not in full armor though he did have a chain-mail shirt. In the instant before Lancelot hit him in the mouth with the heel of his palm, Kiera saw that it was Agravaine. She stifled a cry of sympathetic pain.

  Agravaine would have staggered backwards, out into the hallway, but Lancelot was anticipating that. He had hold of Agravaine's sword arm, and he jerked him back into the room. Immediately he let go, then drove his elbow into Agravaine's face.

  Guinevere slammed the door shut behind them and secured the bolt.

  Kiera backed into a wall, too shocked for tears.

  Lancelot brought his knee up in Agravaine's groin. Then, before Agravaine could straighten, Lancelot jerked his knee up again, this time slamming him under the chin, snapping Agravaine's head back. Then Lancelot kicked him in the chest so that he fell. Agravaine must have been stunned, his grip on the sword loosened, for Lancelot was able to wrest the weapon away. He brought the hilt down hard at the base of Agravaine's skull, and Agravaine dropped flat onto the floor.

  Unsure of her legs, Kiera slid down the length of the wall until she was sitting on her heels.

  The Queen leaned against the door, her face pale. She was breathing almost as hard as Lancelot. "Is he dead?" she asked. This time her whisper seemed more shock than desire for secrecy.

  "No," said Lancelot.

  He should know. Surely he had enough experience and should know. Kiera prayed he was right. He knelt and began to strip off Agravaine's protective mail.

  Kiera brought her knees up to her chest. She rested her forehead against them, gulping down a wave of nausea. Then she pushed her damp hair away from her face and got to her feet. If Agravaine was to get help from anybody in this room, it would have to be her.

  Before she could move, the door behind Guinevere rattled with a sudden jolt. "Agravaine!" It was Mordred's voice. Kiera's teeth started to chatter.

  Lancelot recognized Mordred's voice, too—Keira could tell. He finished unfastening the mail shirt and started to put it on. Guinevere went to help him.

  "Agravaine!" Mordred called again, unaccustomed urgency in his voice.

  Kiera used her hand to push herself away from the wall. Agravaine was breathing, but he bled from nose and mouth and—more dangerously, she knew—from the ears. She folded the blanket Lancelot had discarded and put it under Agravaine's head. Although he was sweating profusely, his skin seemed unnaturally cold.

  And Mordred practically screamed: "Lancelot, what have you done to Agravaine?"

  Kiera bit her lip. Lancelot looked across at her, then down at Agravaine. He sighed, then knelt beside her. He forced the fallen knight's eyes open. The pupil of his right eye was larger than that of his left. Lancelot swore and sat back on his heels. He looked about the room, shook his head, swore again.

  Other voices joined Mordred's: "Sir Lancelot, open this door."

  Lancelot looked at Guinevere, who had her own eyes closed. Agravaine was, after all, her nephew. "If there had not been so many of them..." Lancelot said. "If I had brought my own sword in with me..." Kiera saw him swallow hard. Then he wiped his hand, sweaty and bloody, on his leg and picked up Agravaine's sword.

  "Keep out of the way," he told the ladies-in-waiting. "You are not in danger."

  He started back toward the Queens room, but stopped when he realized Guinevere had followed him. He took her hand and kissed it. "Your ladies need you," he said.

  "Yes," Guinevere said. She pressed his hand to her cheek.

  After a moment he released her hand.

  This tenderness wasn't what Kiera had expected, not from the whispered titters, the smirks people gave each other.

  Guinevere returned, shooing the women into the corner of the room that was farthest from both doors. All except for Kiera, who stayed by Agravaine's side.

  Lancelot strode into the farther room, away from the Queen, away from the women, away—Kiera realized—from Mordred, who pounded at this door, frantic to find out what had happened to his brother. Lancelot yanked open the Queen's door. Very quietly—very quietly—he said: "If you have a quarrel with me, here I am."

  They must have recognized the shirt and sword. "He's murdered Agravaine!" several voices shouted.

  Kiera averted her gaze. She turned her attention back to Agravaine. That was bad enough. She didn't look up at the sound of clashing swords. With every breath, blood bubbled and foamed around Agravaine's nose and at the corners of his mouth. She used her hand to wipe it away.

  Someone knelt beside her: Lisette, who, until Kiera's arrival, had been t
he youngest of the Queens ladies. She held out a pale yellow kerchief, but kept her face tilted away so as not to see.

  There was a yell from the other room. Kiera jumped and involuntarily glanced over. Through the doorway, she saw at least three men already down, but Lancelot was being forced back by the sheer number of opponents.

  A loud, rattling breath seemed to catch in Agravaine's throat. It wasn't followed by another. She turned back reluctantly, knowing what to expect before she saw it: His chest no longer heaved and the blood at his nose and mouth no longer stirred with breath. Only one drop still worked its way across his cheek.

  "Oh, Agravaine," she said. The ballads were always full of heroic last words, of destiny fulfilled. This was just a body that no longer moved. She stared at the crumpled bloody cloth in her hand because she couldn't look at his face any longer.

  Someone must have crashed into the table where Guinevere kept her perfumes and cosmetics: Glass shattered and wood splintered. Lancelot was being forced to give way, although more of the intruders were down. Now he had been backed practically into the room of the ladies-in-waiting; he fought two knights at once.

  Lisette tugged on Kiera's arm. She was suddenly joined by Guinevere, and the two of them dragged Kiera out of the fighting men's way, for she had no feeling in her body and couldn't move on her own.

  The pair that fought Lancelot got in each other's way in the narrow confines of the doorway. That, and their reluctance to get in as close to him as they needed, caused Lancelot to start regaining lost ground. But suddenly both his opponents fell back entirely, making way for someone else.

  Guinevere's fingers dug into her shoulder, and Kiera went cold all over.

  Lancelot was fighting Mordred.

  Framed by the doorway, Lancelot didn't have enough room to maneuver; he had to shorten his swings and couldn't dodge to the side. But he was the best swordsman in Camelot. And Mordred ... Despite her love for him, even Kiera knew that Mordred was no better than average.

  Lancelot parried a jab, feinted to the left, then thrust right. Mordred blocked, trying to force Lancelot into a tighter angle against the wall.