The Book of Mordred

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "You cannot do this," Alayna repeated yet again.

  "Which?" Mordred asked ingenuously. "Absolving Kiera?"

  "Stop it. Mordred, please, Arthur trusted you ... You know what he'll say when you turn up with that longbow corps that he has already disbanded once. There can only be trouble. Think what you're doing."

  Mordred looked at Bayard before returning his attention to Alayna. "My Lady," he said, matching her tone, "think what you are doing."

  Alayna flushed. "You have no right," she whispered hoarsely.

  Mordred turned again to Bayard and gave a tight smile. "As for you, Sir Bayard, I think I would feel safest were you where I could watch you at all times. So you will accompany us."

  "How dare you!" Alayna clutched and twisted Bayard's hand as though it were a glove or kerchief. "Besides saving Kiera's very life, Bayard has been good and kind to both of us while you were too busy to notice us. And now you want to prevent that, too. You'll never be the king Arthur is. And you'll never be the man Bayard is!"

  Mordred's expression never changed—it just froze where it was. He gave a slight bow and turned his back on them. He was enveloped immediately in the crowd, which chattered about details of the departure.

  Kiera stared into the crowd, knowing that she teetered on the precipice of the land of swirling gray mist.

  It was Bayard's unwelcome voice that called her back from the edge. "Well," he said, sounding relieved, "what we wanted but not quite the way we expected it—eh, my dears? Just so long as Kiera is safe." He enveloped the two of them in a hug, and Alayna started to cry.

  Kiera looked up, surprised.

  "There, there," Bayard said. He pulled Alayna close to his chest and patted her head, which only made her cry more. She threw her arms around his neck and he rocked her gently.

  Let her go, Kiera wished at him. She couldn't remember ever having seen her mother cry. And why, oh why, did Alayna turn to Bayard for comfort? Kiera stared at her hands until her own eyes began to fill with tears. Annoyed, she tossed her head, brushing at the hair sticking to her face. For one instant she glimpsed Bayard's face while he was unaware of being seen.

  Although he still held Alayna with all the tenderness of a parent, and although he murmured comforting endearments, and although his voice was warm and distressed, he smiled.

  Like a cat crouched in the fish market, he smiled.

  CHAPTER 13

  The dispatches came addressed to Sir Kaye because, as seneschal in charge of managing the household, the King's aging foster brother was the closest thing to a man of authority they had left. Sir Kaye had them read out loud in the courtyard because—as he said—he had long outgrown any interest in power and empire. What Kiera suspected was that he wanted to share his responsibility with as many others as possible, should any decisions be called for—should anything go wrong.

  The news that she heard in these courtyard sessions went from good to bad to worse.

  First, before Mordred's group would have made it beyond Britain's borders, they received word that Gawain was doing well and, with rest, would recover completely.

  But the next rider from the front reported that Mordred and Arthur had argued bitterly and that Arthur had commanded Mordred to return to Camelot immediately.

  On the heels of that came the devastating news that Mordred had only pretended to leave, but had instead circled behind Joyous Gard in the dark of night—and had mistakenly slaughtered one of Arthur's patrols.

  The messenger, still astride his horse to be better seen, told off the names of those killed: twenty-three of Arthur's men, two of Mordred's. Despite the obvious superiority of Mordred's peasant-soldiers, the King had ordered their longbows confiscated and burned. "He assembled the entire army," the messenger said, "and burned those bows for all to see, even Lancelot and his pack sitting in their damned castle, no doubt laughing their faithless heads off. And the King, he talks more and more of making peace with Sir Lancelot."

  "That's all we have had with Arthur lately," someone in the crowd called out: "concessions and endless war and in-fighting. Mordred did better the little chance he had."

  Others grumbled agreement.

  Kiera, who'd heard enough to make her head ache, decided that she needed less of people and more of horses. She stopped at the stables to get an armful of apples to offer as gifts. The warm, friendly scent of the animals and their leather accouterments, the sweet hay, the tart crispness of the apples—all these blended for a feeling of familiarity and well-being. She straightened from picking the apples out of their bin, and heard a voice, from the other side of the wall, from outside.

  "So now they have lost Willis, too." It was the name that had been given as one of Mordred's archers who had been killed.

  She didn't recognize the voice of the man who spoke, and there was no reason for her to listen or be interested, but she stood motionless and held her breath for quiet's sake. Nobody had bothered her since Mordred had declared her innocent of witchcraft, but she knew safety lay in not attracting attention.

  A second man asked, "Willis—which one was that, the youngest?"

  "No, second eldest, the one after young Eldred, who came to such a bad end."

  "Sir Bayard's friend?"

  One of the apples slipped out of the crook of her elbow as her arm twitched. She had to scramble to keep it from hitting the ground.

  The first speaker must have been taken by surprise, too, for there was a long pause before he said, "If Eldred was Bayard's friend, God protect me from friends."

  "Bayard and Willis, you dolt," the other corrected. "Willis was always running errands for him, doing this and that for a bit of copper. Though I imagine Bayard knew Eldred well enough, too. Double the tragedy of him killing him like that. Paid 'em off good though, I'm told—the family."

  "Still, bad fortune to lose the two boys." The voices faded as the men moved away.

  Kiera finally remembered to breathe.

  Then jumped when Bayard's voice whispered, "I heard her scream."

  Kiera whirled around, scattering the rest of her apples.

  But Bayard was a week's journey away, with Mordred's army.

  By then it was too late to stop the vision.

  The ducks scattered. The two young toughs came running down the hill. They ripped the flower basket from her hand. They chased her, pulled her hair, knocked her down.

  "I don't know the youths' names," Bayard said. "I was exercising my horse. I heard her scream."

  Eldred's hands closed around her wrists, Lowell's around her ankles She couldn't breathe.

  "I heard her scream," Bayard said.

  She came up sputtering and choking.

  "No!" Eldred screamed—Eldred, not her, and Bayard was there already, snapping Lowell's neck—"No!" And what was that expression on the doomed Eldred's face? Pain? Certainly. Fear? Recognition? Betrayal?

  "Always . doing this and that for a bit of copper," a disembodied voice proclaimed "Paid 'em off good . . "

  She heard the thud of Eldred's skull against the tree.

  "Yon young ruffians will harm you no more"

  She found herself on her knees, rocking back and forth, her hands covering her face.

  He'd paid them. He'd paid them to do that to her. Then killed them. She wanted to rip her skin off where they'd touched her. She wanted to use her fingernails on their faces the way she'd been accused of doing. She wanted to hurt Bayard, and hurt him, and hurt him, and hurt him.

  Her thoughts frightened her. She put her hand out to steady herself. She needed to stop this. She needed to stand up and walk to her mother's room and tell her how things really stood with Bayard. That was what she needed to do.

  But she put her hand out while her eyes were still closed and felt a dead man's face.

  That was how she had first seen Bayard, bloodied and glaze-eyed on the misty gray field she'd seen on the hillside the day she and her mother and Agravaine had crossed paths with Mordred and Nimue, the day that first intro
duced misfortune into her life.

  But now she wanted it. She wanted to see him dead. She opened her eyes...

  ...and it was Gawain she saw, his face white beyond reason and the eyes fixed upward.

  No, she thought. He recovered. The messages had said so. This couldn't be.

  "No!" She whispered the word, as though there might be more strength in the denial if she spoke it out loud. "No!"

  And she saw Mordred turn. And Arthur's voice echoed hers: "No!"

  The mist caught in a draft from the stable door and dissipated, leaving her entirely alone.

  She forced herself to stand. And she put one foot in front of the other until she reached the north pasture even though what she wanted was her mother, the comfort of her arms, the calmness of her voice.

  But she had let events control her long enough, and the time for action, if not past due, was now.

  "Tempest," she called, for her own pony, Ebony, was too small for such a journey. "Tempest!" She climbed over the stone wall and was immediately assaulted by the colts and breeding mares who nudged her and got in her way, jostling for the apples whose scent they caught from her clothes. "Tempest!"

  She squinted at the hill in the back section, and her heart sank at the thought of having to walk that far. She was bumped from behind. "Oh, go," she said, still trying to pick out movement in the distance. "I don't have anything with me." Not trying to hide their disappointment, most of the horses wandered away, but the persistent one from behind snuffled in her ear.

  "Stop," she said firmly, and turned around, but it was Tempest after all. She threw her arms around the old destrier's neck. "Oh, Tempest, please help me."

  He nuzzled her—comfort, yes, because he was sweet-natured despite the battle training—but also she knew she still swelled of those apples she had dropped in the stable.

  "I'm sorry, I lost them," she said, rubbing his large head between the eyes. He was palest gray, even closer to white than in those days when he had been Mordred's destrier, the young knight's first.

  To show there were no hard feelings, Tempest moved closer to rub his head against her, placing his immense feet carefully so as not to step on her.

  "Mordred is in trouble," Kiera said, "and so is his friend Gawain." Horses had trouble with the concept of family, but friendship was something they could understand even better than many humans. "I want to help them, to warn them."

  Tempest moved closer still, no longer playful, but for her to mount.

  Destriers were bred big, tall and broad to support the weight of a knight in full armor. It took her two tries before she managed to scramble on. No dainty sidesaddle seating, of course. She settled herself, straddled, putting her arms around his neck. "We have to get to the sea as soon as possible," she said, leaving the worry about how to cross till they got there. "Do you know—"

  Tempest didn't take the time to answer, but took off at a full gallop straight for the stone wall that fenced in the pasture.

  Afraid to watch, Kiera buried her face in his neck. Trust, she told herself. She felt his muscles tense, then there was the sensation of hurtling through the air, followed by a jolt where her heart and her body caught up to each other.

  By the time she felt confident enough to look up and back, all she could see of Camelot were the tips of the highest towers.

  It took four days.

  They had to stop when Kiera became too tired to hold on, and other times to ask for food from cottagers who gaped dumbly at her on her aging but splendid war horse. Nobody questioned her. They just disappeared inside for a few moments, then came back with dark bread and cheese, or smoked fish. Sometimes they brought hay or a bit of oats for Tempest, though mostly he foraged by the roadside. They looked afraid not to comply, these dark-eyed peasants and their too-silent children. Was it the strangeness of her appearance that upset them, or had her reputation spread this far, or had they just seen too much? Best not to ask. She gratefully accepted what they gave and left as quickly as she could, knowing that every delay might cost Gawains life.

  Finally she was sure she could smell the sea. It was almost dusk—and how was she ever going to find a boat for hire?—when they crested a hill and she saw campfires below.

  Tempest stopped to let her look. "Mordred," she said, for her eyesight was good enough to make out the black and white of his flag. But the camp was too big for him alone. Arthur must have returned with him after all, though she couldn't tell if there were any of the red and gold dragon flags.

  She urged Tempest to the edge of the hill, then let him pick his own way amongst the rocks and bushes. She was debating whether the probable safety she'd gain by getting off and walking alongside was worth the effort of having to get back on, when a figure stepped out of the shadows.

  Tempest stopped, his nostrils flaring.

  A knight, Kiera saw, an outpost guard.

  The man held his hands out, to show them weaponless, which meant he had seen her long before she saw him—and recognized her. She didn't know him. She patted Tempest's neck. "Easy," she murmured.

  Tempest snorted.

  The man looked from her to the horse, no doubt trying to estimate how much control she actually wielded.

  "I am looking for Sir Mordred," she told him. "Or Sir Gawain." Please let Gawain be still alive, she prayed.

  "Right," the man said. Did Mordred intentionally pick men whose faces gave away as little as his own? Carefully, he eased ahead of them, helping to clear a path.

  People from the camp must have been watching their progress. They had hardly reached the bottom, when the curious left their campfires, heading toward them.

  Her escort made a move as though to help Kiera dismount, and Tempest reared back on his hind legs.

  Somehow she held on.

  The knight jumped out of the way of the flailing hooves. No telling if he realized that—had Tempest's intent been serious—the man couldn't have moved fast enough. "Right," he said again. "Just come this way then." He led her toward the officers' tents, but checked over his shoulder several times, nervous with Tempest at his back.

  CHAPTER 14

  The flap of the center tent was pulled open, but it took Tempest to whinny softly, and the knight to bow his head with a murmured, "my Lord," before Kiera saw it was Mordred who had stepped out.

  Silently, he helped her dismount. She leaned close to Tempests ear. "Thank you," she whispered. "You can go with this man now." He probably would have anyway—satisfied, once Mordred scratched him in the spot between his eyes, that all was well.

  Mordred held the tent flap for her, and she stepped inside.

  Two knights looked up from a field table spread with maps and papers. She recognized one vaguely, though she didn't know his name: one of Mordred's friends who had returned from banishment after Lancelot's treason. The other knight's face was unfamiliar.

  Mordred motioned them out, but then stopped them at the entry, for one final quiet word.

  Kiera paced impatiently. Where was Gawain? She made a wide circle of the interior to avoid the suit of black armor that was set out. She forced herself to see no more than what was actually there. No mist. No blood. She touched a wall of the pavilion, taut reality. There was a pallet in one corner, its blanket unfolded. Next to that was another table, smaller than the one in the middle of the tent, but just as cluttered. This one held weaponry—broadsword, crossbow and bolts, an anlace whose intricately worked handle indicated very old craftsmanship—also a leather shirt, several rings and armbands, an extra helmet. The whole assortment looked to have been simply dropped there. She shook her head. Meticulous as Mordred might be in matters of tactics and strategy, he had always been careless about personal possessions.

  She picked up the shirt, and had started to fold it before she realized it was much too big to be Mordred's. Her eyes reluctantly went back to the helmet she had moved to get at the shirt. Silver-colored, not black like Mordred's armor. And one side was caved in. She felt light-headed. Surely if the me
tal was so badly damaged, the skull it was supposed to have protected would have been ... She went to cover her mouth, thinking she might be sick, but she still had Gawain's shirt in her hand.

  She felt someone loosen her fingers, take the shirt, and finally she focused on Mordred, who had stepped between her and the table strewn with Gawain's possessions. She saw him try to gauge how much she guessed, how much she needed to be told.

  "I saw Gawain dead," she said.

  His eyes widened slightly. He let go of her, putting his hand to his chest, clasping Nimue's ring, still on its strip of leather around his neck.

  And she felt the cold gray mist swirl about her ankles. "I came to warn him," she said, her voice close to a whisper. Obviously she was too late. "I came to warn you."

  He turned back, looked at her levelly.

  Say something, do something, she wanted to cry. Let me know you feel something. "You're in danger, Mordred, mortal danger." She was afraid that if she cried, it would weaken her argument, make her seem childish, but he did not look worried. He just gazed at her blandly.

  "Yes," he finally said. "Nimue says so, too."

  "Nimue?" This time her voice was a whisper.

  Mordred's hand tightened on the enchantress's ring and his eyes seemed to look beyond her. "Yes. But she's so distant ... so unclear ... I can see her, but I cannot make out..." He looked directly at Kiera again. "Has she contacted you? Is that what you're saying?"

  "No." Kiera wasn't sure she had spoken loud enough for him to hear. "No, it's these visions I've been having since before ... since ... all along. I ... Mordred, don't fight with Arthur."

  Mordred raised his eyebrows. He started to say something, then cut himself off. He took another breath; but instead of speaking, he began to pace. "Nimue," he finally begun again, "Nimue..."

  Kiera watched him, anxious because she had no idea what to expect. He was full of energy, but vague, flickering energy, like a flame; and something was wrong with his eyes, which wouldn't meet hers directly and reminded her of swirling mist.