The Book of Mordred

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Kiera didn't know much about fighting—she didn't like tournaments and had only attended a few—but it didn't take an expert to realize that Lancelot was passing up opportunities. The first time, Mordred had swung too wide, misjudging the width of the doorway. His sword grazed the stone arch, leaving him exposed a moment too long. But Lancelot didn't take advantage of the opening. Then it happened again: a clear chance to sever Mordred's hand at the wrist, but instead Lancelot pressed forward, and Mordred was able to block.

  Lancelot was only trying to disarm him, Kiera realized suddenly. He was trying very hard not to kill him. The relief was almost enough to start her crying again.

  Mordred made a quick move that Lancelot mistook for a feint. Almost too late, he stepped back; but now Mordred was confined by the doorway and Lancelot had the freedom of movement.

  Lancelot worked to his own left, cramping Mordred's sword arm, then suddenly he aimed for the head. Mordred started to shift balance, but it was a feint after all, and Lancelot swung back, pinning Mordred's weapon against the wall.

  There was no time for him to slip down through the bottom: Lancelot grabbed his hand and slammed it against the stones that formed the arch of the doorway. Mordred winced, trying to pull down, but Lancelot jerked the hand back and hit the wall with it again. Then again, and again. Mordred tried to twist around, to get at Lancelot with his left hand, but the older, bigger knight had thrown his weight against him. The back of Mordred's fist hit the wall yet again. This time he was unable to suppress a cry of pain, but Lancelot relentlessly repeated the motion. The next time, Mordred's sword dropped from his fingers.

  Lancelot's grip shifted lower on his arm. He yanked Mordred into the room and threw him on the floor. Already two of the other knights had made it through the door, and Lancelot defended himself against them without a glance to see where Mordred landed.

  Kiera only just kept from crying out. Mordred had instinctively put out his right hand, the injured one, to break his fall and now was on his knees bent over in pain, with his eyes closed, unaware that what he had tripped over was his dead brother.

  Mordred began to get up.

  And then, then he opened his eyes.

  Guinevere suddenly jerked Kiera away. The motion snapped her head back, and she saw that while Lancelot fought two knights, two others had circled behind and were running toward the corner where the women were.

  Guinevere put herself between the ladies-in-waiting and the men, before anyone had a chance to think that she was the one who most needed protecting.

  Kiera knew these people. She knew the men who were fighting and dying. She wanted to scream, Stop it, stop it! What was the matter with them? There: That was Sir Mador de la Porte, a kindly man who had given her piggyback rides when she'd been younger. Now he grabbed Guinevere by the arm and spun her around, holding his sword near her throat. The other knight was freckle-faced Sir Lionel, and he faced the ladies as though to ensure that they wouldn't try to sneak up from behind.

  "My Lady!" Hildy screamed.

  Lancelot whirled around.

  "Hold!" Sir Mador said.

  For a moment, everyone was motionless. The Queen didn't struggle against Mador who held her. Kiera and the ladies faced Lionel silently. The two who had been fighting Lancelot had frozen midstroke, their swords still up. Mordred remained on his knees next to Agravaine.

  Then Lancelot grabbed the knight nearest him and heaved him against his companion.

  Sir Mador's sword came closer to the Queen's throat.

  Lancelot raised his sword, but took a backwards step. He was looking not at Mador but at Guinevere. "I will come back," he promised. Again he moved backwards. Then he did look at Mador, and told him, too, "I will come back."

  "Get him!" Mador yelled to the other two, who were still trying to disentangle themselves from each other.

  Lancelot turned and fled.

  The two knights followed him, and Kiera heard their footsteps running down the hall. But then that was gone also, and all that was left was the sound of Mordred, his face against Agravaines chest, crying softly.

  CHAPTER 5

  Light knights were dead, and two seriously injured, besides Mordred. People who for years had been willing to laugh and shrug about Guinevere and Lancelot, people who had said, "Ah, well—passion!" with a wink and a nod, now spoke of bitter betrayal. Adultery was treason for a Queen, and she and Lancelot had been caught together. The trial on which Arthur insisted was simply postponing the inevitable, people complained.

  Many put the blame squarely on Lancelot rather than Guinevere, as a man and a knight, he should have known better, they said. Others put the blame on the Orkney brothers—not only Mordred and Agravaine, but also Gawain, Gaheris, and Gareth, who had not even been there—for forcing the King to publicly acknowledge what he had surely known, or at the least suspected, for years.

  But whomever else people blamed, the person they most found fault with was Kiera—the witch girl who had known what was coming and refused to warn anyone.

  Hildy and Enid and some of the others took to intentionally bumping into Kiera. Or they would tip over her embroidery stand, causing it to crash to the floor: threads and needles skittering under rugs and furniture, never to be seen again. Or they would jar her elbow as she ate so that her dinner ended up in her lap. Queen Guinevere caught them at it once—she walked into the room and found them pouring stagnant water from a flower vase into Kiera's clothes chest. She made them launder the clothes, and even checked to see that they had done a good job. But that didn't serve to make the girls nicer—just more careful.

  Kiera's perceived guilt overflowed onto her mother. For years Alayna's healing skills had been recognized and sought out by the ladies of Camelot. But now she was the traitor witch's mother, and instead they went to the tinsmith's mother, a midwife, or they waited for Padraic, the old former sergeant and one-time friar who tended injured knights. If Alayna spent a good deal of time taking care of the injured Mordred, she had a good deal of time to spare.

  On the day of Queen Guinevere's trial, Alayna sat on a chair by Mordred's bed, working on some lap embroidery. Even with her weak eyes, Kiera could see the large knotted loop her mother was trying to pick out of the thread; sewing had never been a talent of hers.

  Kiera couldn't quite look at Mordred. With his pale face and closed eyes, he gave the impression of being dead.

  Like the knight in her vision.

  His right hand, the one Lancelot had broken, was wrapped with wet gauze. Padraic had treated the hand with hot oil, and it had become badly swollen, with a throbbing redness that extended almost to the elbow. Alayna had finally convinced Mordred that hot oil festered more wounds than it healed and that she could do better. Since Padraic had begun hinting that the hand might have to be cut off, Mordred was willing to be persuaded.

  So far, her hot compresses seemed to have stopped the advance of the bad blood, though he remained alarmingly weak.

  If Nimue hadn't died, she could have healed him.

  If Nimue hadn't died, she might have taught Kiera how to heal.

  If Nimue hadn't died, might none of this have happened?

  Gawain entered the room, and Alayna put down the piece of linen she was embroidering. "He needs to sleep," she warned.

  Gawain countered, "I need to speak with him."

  Alayna shook her head, but it was too late. Mordred's eyes opened.

  Feverish, Kiera saw, even as she returned his weak smile. His eyes had that same too-bright quality she had noted in Pinel. She sat hunched over her own embroidery.

  Gawain sat down on the edge of the bed. Kiera knew what he was going to say before he said it—not from any magical vision, but from his stormy expression. "The trial is over," Gawain said. "Arthur has just declared the Queen guilty of treason."

  Somehow, someway, Kiera had expected that it wouldn't have come to this. That there had been some proper and valid reason for Lancelot being there. A reason Guinevere had to keep to her
self till the last possible moment, such as...

  Such as...

  "So," said Mordred, struggling to sit up, "that was expected."

  "Yes." Gawain offered his brother no assistance. He got up and walked to the window. "Good view," he said. "You should be able to see the execution from here."

  "Execution" Mordred scoffed.

  But even if Mordred took the word lightly, Kiera couldn't.

  Gawain turned on him sharply. "Yes, execution. You know the penalty for treason: Trial by combat, or this new civil thing—it's still death. You forced the issue. You backed Arthur into a corner. For God's sake, man, what good will it do you to have the Queen burned at the stake?"

  Mordred said, "Arthur has no intention of burning his wife at the stake."

  "Then why has he spent all this time listening to the most hateful, despicable—"

  "He's waiting." The strain of even this short a conversation was already showing. They all had to lean forward to hear his words. They all looked at him blankly. Mordred added, "For Lancelot."

  What in the world was he talking about?

  There was a long moment of silence. It was Alayna who spoke. "Arthur isn't that devious. He wouldn't use Guinevere as bait to lure Lance."

  "No," Mordred said. "Arthur is honesdy counting on Lancelot to come and rescue her. I am using her as bait."

  Oh, Kiera thought.

  Gawain pointed a finger at him. His face was flushed and his voice an angry rumble. "Lancelot again! When will you leave off Lancelot? The man never did harm to any of us—"

  "He killed Agravaine."

  Kiera fought away the memory.

  "Because you came at him. But Lancelot is the one who knighted Gareth. He rescued the whole lot of us from Sir Tarqum—"

  "He killed Agravaine," Mordred repeated. His voice was just as even, but the fevered gray eyes sparkled.

  "You came at him armed." Gawain practically shook with rage. If Kiera could have fled the room, she would have, rather than listen to them argue. "So he was the Queens lover," Gawain said. "How did that harm you? Or Agravaine? But the two of you just kept at him and kept at him. They hurt nothing. If the King was willing to live with it, why..." He made a helpless gesture and regained control of his voice. "Why? If I had known what you two planned that night..." Again he had to stop. "What a stupid thing to die over."

  "Yes." Mordred sank back into his pillow and closed his eyes.

  Gawain looked up sharply, perhaps suspecting sarcasm.

  "What do you want me to say?" Mordred whispered. "That I weighed Agravaine's life against Lancelot's and thought the risk worth taking? I never suspected it would end that way."

  Gawain shook his head. He walked to the window and back. "Peace, Mordred," he said. "Peace."

  For the time being, Kiera thought.

  With that, the church bell started to ring, a slow, solemn Bong! Bong! Bong! The death knell: letting the countryside know the King's decision.

  "Damnation," Gawain whispered.

  The bell seemed to go on forever. Like the pounding in Kiera's dream, which had turned out to be Agravaine banging on the Queen's door. Demanding entrance. Demanding to be killed.

  Mordred waited for it to stop. Then: "When?" he asked.

  "Two days hence," Gawain said. "Sunset."

  So soon? Kiera thought.

  Mordred said nothing.

  Kiera looked from him, to Gawain, to Alayna. Her mother, biting her lip, picked up her embroidery again and once more tried to get the thread unknotted. But she worked in impatient, jerky movements and finally tugged, snapping the thread. She pulled the end through to the wrong side, then pulled on the right side, again on the wrong, violently removing that length, starting all over.

  "I like Guinevere," Kiera said. "She's very kind."

  "Nothing bad is going to happen to her," Mordred said, barely more than a whisper.

  Perhaps he believed it.

  Gawain stared out the window, and her mother kept undoing the thread.

  CHAPTER 6

  Guinevere was restricted to her rooms, but she was allowed to keep her ladies-in-waiting.

  Once, she suggested that Kiera might return to her mother.

  "Are you sending me away?" Kiera asked, thinking of the rumors told about her and her mother and the Orkneys.

  "No," Guinevere assured her. "I am only giving you leave to choose for yourself whether to go or stay."

  Kiera stayed.

  Then it was the last day, and Kiera thought, The next time she offers, I will go. But as the time drew near, she watched the ladies one by one excuse themselves and never come back.

  Arthur had been there already, sitting with Guinevere for a long time, holding her hands, the two of them talking so quietly that those of the ladies who remained could not hear. And before he left, they embraced, and several more of the ladies departed.

  The royal apartments faced north. Usually candles were lit there before they were necessary elsewhere. But this afternoon the ladies did their stitchery by feel, unwilling to acknowledge the coming of dusk.

  Father Jerome had come as the shadows grew longer, and now he, too, was gone.

  And they were suddenly aware that Guinevere was ready. They had fussed with her long hair, braiding it over and over, never satisfied, until she had called enough, and now the braids were circled around her head, and neither Kiera nor any of the other three remaining ladies could pick out a flaw with which to keep her hands busy. The Queen sat in her plain yellow shift, with her own hands folded on her lap, and they could barely see her face in the gloom.

  Someone knocked on the door, softly, hesitantly. Hildy began to cry.

  Guinevere waited a moment. Then, when it was obvious not one of her ladies was going to move, she got up and opened the door herself. "Gareth," she said softly. "Gaheris." She looked at her two nephews, and at Father Jerome, who stood behind the two younger men, his head bowed. "Are you to be the ones ... Are you my guards?" She stood even straighter.

  The brothers had neither swords nor armor. Gaheris bowed first, taking her hand and kissing it, and then Gareth did the same. "Lady Queen, we are not your guards, but your honor escort," Gareth said. He bent to kiss her hand again, to hide the tears in his already-red eyes.

  Guinevere laid her hand on his cheek. "Gentle Gareth," she whispered. She ran a finger along Gaheris's jaw line. "Sweet Gaheris."

  "My Lady," Gaheris said, because it was obvious Gareth couldn't say anything, "it is time."

  Guinevere turned to Hildy. "Stop that," she commanded, more sharply than was her wont.

  But Hildy only cried louder.

  Guinevere tried to reason with her: "Hildy, I cannot be accompanied by someone ... Please stop. I cannot go out there if..." Her voice had begun to tremble.

  Kiera saw the Queen's gaze pass over her. Just a child: She knew Guinevere thought it of her, though fourteen was a woman. Only Enid and Selma were left. "Enid," Guinevere begged, because Selma—though quieter than Hildy—was crying just as hard.

  Enid shook her head. "I can't," she mouthed, though no words came out.

  Guinevere took a deep breath and turned to the door. "I am ready," she told the men.

  "I will go with you," Kiera said.

  Guinevere shook her head.

  Kiera ran after her, tugging on her sleeve. "I'll go."

  "It would not be seemly for you to be alone," Gaheris said to the Queen.

  Guinevere rested her hand on Kiera's head. "Only," she said, "only if you promise me, give me your word that you'll leave ... before ... Before."

  Kiera nodded. Did they see she'd agree to anything rather than abandon her Lady?

  "Then I thank you. I would be pleased to have you accompany me," Guinevere said. Her face pale, she said: "Now we are ready."

  Still unable to look at her, Gareth extended his arm for her. Gaheris took Kiera by the elbow.

  Father Jerome stepped to the front. Slowly swinging a censer, he intoned, "By the Cross and Resurrecti
on of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, our faith affirms that we die so that we may live forever."

  They started down the hall to the courtyard. The open door at the end of the hall blew the bitter smoke of incense back into Kiera's nostrils, creating a gray fog about her face. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting Gaheris guide her. Something has to happen, she thought. The Queen cannot really die. Arthur can't let that happen. Mordred can't.

  And then the bell started to ring.

  The bell tower overlooked the courtyard, almost directly overhead. The noise shot all the way through her: Bong! Bong! Bong!—the same solemn tones as when Guinevere had been sentenced.

  Kiera stiffened and stopped. Gaheris was brought up short for an instant, then he pulled her along with him. Don't let yourself get dragged out there, she tried to convince herself. What was the matter with her? What of the Queen's dignity? She took a few hesitant steps, but Father Jerome and Gareth and the Queen were a good distance ahead of them now, were already outside.

  "Yea, though I walk in the Valley of Darkness..." Father Jerome began.

  Several voices cheered, perhaps to show love and support for Guinevere, like Gareth and Gaheris, or maybe because the interesting part was beginning. The sound was drowned out by another clamor from the bell. Whoever was in charge let each peal fade away before ringing the next. Birds—wrens and sparrows—that normally roosted in the tower alternately wheeled and fluttered uncertainly.

  She and Gaheris were in the courtyard now. Kiera looked at the grim faces surrounding her. Who were all these people, like waiting vultures? Could their lives be so drab that they welcomed the diversion of a public burning no matter who the victim was, or were they specifically interested in seeing the Queen die? A man, a local peasant by his garb, had brought in a wagon and was loudly trying to sell sausages.

  Ahead of them, Guinevere had mounted the platform that held the stake. She was stepping over the bundles of kindling. Bong! Bong! the bell continued. The courtyard spun and Kiera put her hand out to keep from falling onto the grass.