by Sarah Zettel
That, and the evidence of Agravain’s labours kept her from having to dwell too much on her own thoughts. Their quay quickly became its own small market. An hour or so after he left with Agravain, Squire Devi returned and stationed himself at the foot of the dock. Every few minutes another man would come up and greet him, usually a trader or merchant with a stylus and a tablet hanging from his belt. Ships lifted their anchors, moving themselves closer to their tiny craft. These were not little cogs like the one they travelled in, but great, oared long ships with square, striped sails. They let down their gangways to allow the merchant’s crews to begin their lading.
And what they loaded! Laurel forgot her own work to stand and stare: great timber beams that had been squared off and notched; hogsheads of water and beer; swords and armours; oxen, ponies, ingots of iron, bars of steel. There were far stranger things as well, clay jars, some empty, some sealed in wax that nonetheless stank of pitch, piss or sulphur. Caulked barrels carried disgusting messes of hair and sinew. These were wrestled aboard beside shapeless bundles of leather and canvas, some so huge it took three men to lift them.
With these outlandish objects came an equally outlandish host of men; thin, pale boys Devi greeted as brother squires. Ancient men with gnarled hands and sharp eyes. Men with soft, scholar’s hands but crooked backs, or lame legs. Old soldiers with missing limbs. Blacksmiths, woodwrights and wheelwrights. They barely had a sword or even a knife among them. Instead they brought hammers and saws, augers and adzes.
Ten years of work. Not cultivating loyalty or friendship. Ten years of quietly buying and storing, and hoarding. She had been surprised, in her brief time at Camelot to find how meanly her husband lived. Now, she saw where his wealth had gone, and she found she understood none of it.
But wonder palled, and modesty reasserted itself. Laurel could not stand there endlessly gaping like a raw maiden. She busied herself again with her chests, counting, folding, examining, airing. The clang, clatter and chatter of the other ships washed over her.
It was in the last chest she found what she was truly looking for. This was the smallest, most stoutly built box, made to hold the precious store of watered silk. She folded back a length of garnet red to find a flash of pure white. It was laid out neat and smooth, and had not been there when Meg had packed this chest under Laurel’s supervision.
So, this is where you hid it. Well done, Sir Kai.
She laid her hand on the cool silk. It seemed as if the sounds of the world dimmed just a little, and a strange mix of feeling seeped into her blood, some of the comfort she had missed, but also the sense of things changed and changing, and of that change being both feared and welcomed.
Laurel found herself wondering for the thousandth time about the nature of this sacred thing, of why Merlin’s shattered vision showed him that this was what would turn the tide for Agravain, and for herself.
As she sat there, lost in this inner sea of thought and sensation, a ripple of movement in the muddy water caught her eye. Laurel lifted her hand away, and quickly slammed the chest’s lid shut. Around her, the world continued on, nothing pausing or even hesitating.
But she saw it again. A golden ripple in the lee of one of the jutting rocks that made navigation in these shallows so treacherous. As she frowned at it, a dark head lifted from the waters. Had anyone else noticed it, they might have taken it for a seal come too far up the river from the sea. But Laurel knew at once that was not what it was. Long, dripping locks streamed across its naked shoulders. Its eyes were too dark for any animal’s, the skin too smooth and its face too flat.
Morverch. Laurel’s throat tightened.
The morverch were the sea-women. Mermaids some called them. Bards spoke of them as beautiful women with sparkling fish’s tails where their legs should have been. They had never seen one of the corpse-grey beings before Laurel now, her hair tangled with weeds and strange flowers and a narrow slit in place of her nose.
Greetings, sister. The voice insinuated itself into Laurel’s mind like the first cold trickle of water that said the dam was cracking.
Laurel nodded in return. She glanced to either side. The sailors and the workmen went about their business without hesitation. Probably they could not even see this creature if she did not wish to show herself to them.
What are you afraid, of? The morverch‘s silent words spread themselves out in a long sneer in Laurel’s mind. You don’t wish that man you‘ve snared to see you greeting your kindred?
‘I did not snare him’ Laurel snapped back before she could stop herself.
The morverch grinned. Her teeth were needle sharp. No? You brought him all the wealth that land could offer. You promised him power, but didn’t tell him the first thing about what it means. Gave him your body, but nothing of your true self.
Laurel felt the blood drain from her face and the morverch laughed, a sound like rain spattering into a pond. So stricken. You have all those thoughts swimming on the wind, why should you be surprised they got tangled in another’s net? She lifted her hand plucking at the air with her long, thin fingers.
Laurel bit her lip. ‘You are wrong,’ she murmured, knowing full well the morverch would hear her no matter how softly she spoke.
Am I? That red blood of yours is all but still now. I can feel it. The tide of it is ebbing. You ‘re terrified of what he will do when he truly realizes you have your beginning in the countries where he cannot see or walk. You are as weak as your mother, and just as afraid he’ll leave you when he finds out.
Anger tightened Laurel’s jaw and her hands gripped the rail. ‘You have no right to speak of my mother.’
Who has more right? I clung to her, I cried for her. I begged her not to go. But she went to the burning sun and the scorching air. She let herself die for a man of flesh and blood, and she left her children in ignorance. All this out of fear of what that man would do if he saw what she truly was. If he knew that union with her would change him, change their children forever.
‘No,’ whispered Laurel. But the denial fell flat.
The sea-woman slid forward, her pale shoulders disturbing the muddy waters. Yes. Yes. And you know it. You cannot stop looking over your shoulder. You cannot bring any warmth to your flesh because you are too close to the truth here.
Laurel’s fingers ached from gripping the wood so hard, but she could not loosen them. ‘You lie,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘You think you can trick me like some sailor in a storm.’
The sea-woman’s grin was as sudden and terrible as a lightning flash.
Very good. Very good. You have not forgotten everything, sister. Nor will you forget what I’ve said. I will be here to welcome you home, Laurel.
Between one eye-blink and the next the morverch was gone, leaving behind nothing but a rippling ring in the water, and the memory of her moonlit grin and her cold voice.
Laurel bowed her head and dug her nails into the splintering wood. She did not try to deny that the sea-woman’s words had dug deep into her. That was folly. She was afraid. Every day took her further from all that she was. The only familiar place she had was the sea itself rolling beneath the fragile ships, and that familiarity was treacherous. ‘
Well? She asked herself stonily. What are you going to do? Jump in after her?
Laurel stayed like that for a long time, with no real answer to her question.
TEN
The long summer day was dimming towards twilight when Agravain walked up to Jarl Sifred’s house with Laurel at his side. Four of the stoutest men Devi had gathered into his service followed behind them. They were a decent guard, but they did not make much show in their plain clothes and with only knives and hammers in their belts.
Like King Arthur, Jarl Sifred housed himself in a villa that had once belonged to some wealthy Roman. Unlike the High King, however, Sifred did not appear to have made any effort to maintain his dwelling, let alone improve on it. Soot and mud dimmed the flaking murals. The mosaics and tile patterns had great gaps w
here precious stones had been dug up, or portions had simply crumbled away. Dogs and pigs roamed the court, and a good deal of the house, freely. The wind from the river blew hard through the airy building, which had been designed for a friendlier climate. The two roaring fires Sifred commanded in the square audience room that served as his great hall did little to blunt its edge.
There was one area in which Sifred was diligently making improvement. Like the city itself, the villa was getting a new set of defensive walls. Great piles of stones sat in the villa’s shadow, waiting for the mason’s chisel and mortar to be applied.
Jarl Sifred clearly does not expect the peace between himself and Arthur to last forever.
A wizened old man waited at the bottom of the steps to serve as porter. Agravain passed the man his sword, and charged him to take good care of their followers. The fellow bobbed his head repeatedly and waved them up the steps, but did not follow them.
Alone, Agravain and Laurel walked up the cracked marble steps to greet their host. Agravain would have believed her lost in thought, were it not for how quickly her gaze flickered here and there, taking in every detail of this place and its inhabitants. As was the custom among the Saxons, separate tables had been laid for the men and the women. Laurel’s arm stiffened against his as she took the measure of those whose company she would bear. They looked at least as rough as their men. Their woollen clothing was well-dyed, but unpatterned, and trimmed with furs rather than ribbons. They had some gold ornamentation, and some silver, leavened by the flash of coloured glass and the odd rare gemstone, possibly stolen from the ravaged mosaics.
Londinium’s port might be busy, the wealth of empires might flow through here, but little of it was staying here or at least not with those who inhabited Sifred’s shabby court.
Sifred himself sat between the fires on an ivory inlaid chair of Roman make. Cuffed, collared and belted by broad links of bronze, he wore his beard forked. His straw-yellow hair had been streaked with white and red, then braided so it hung down past his shoulders.
‘Jarl Agravain!’ Sifred surged to his feet, a sturdy mountain of a man, holding out both hands to take Agravain’s own. Agravain suffered this because it was the courtesy of Sifred’s people. ‘Let me look on the man who has sent so many of his own to walk among us!’
With this, Agravain received a kiss of peace that smelled less of liquor than he would have expected. Sifred wanted to come sober to his business. That in itself was telling. This meal was not to be a mere politeness, one lord to another.
‘And your good woman!’ Sifred’s blue eyes suddenly looked piggish in his red face as he took in Laurel’s delicate green dress, translucent veil and gold girdle. She dressed herself fairly plainly from her stores, but even so, she shone brightly among these worn-down women.
Agravain felt his shoulders stiffen. ‘My wife,’ he said firmly. ‘Laurel Carnbrea of Cambryn and the Dumonii.’
‘A stout race,’ allowed Sifred. ‘Brave fighters and rich by all accounts, but I’d not heard tell they bred such beauty among them.’ Sifred tried, and failed, to make his smile something less than a leer. Laurel bore it all with a straight back and untroubled countenance. It occurred to Agravain that he had failed to ask whether she understood the Saxon language. She remained silent as she made her shallow curtsey to Sifred, but her gaze in the moment before she modestly dropped her eyes was keen, and not at all confused.
What are you doing, my lady?
‘Let me make you known to my women. None so fine as yours, Jarl Agravain, but they suit me well.’ Sifred beckoned to a pair of women in plain blue woollen gowns trimmed with furs. The first was Sifred’s match; broad and strong armed, with a round face and keen blue eyes. A necklace of gold and garnets shone on her ample bosom. The second was far smaller and her sunburned face served to brighten her spun-gold hair. The scowl that marred what could have been an otherwise fair countenance spoke of a hard life at the hands of the more powerful woman.
‘This is my Hilde, and that little mouse there is my Tatae. They’ll give your wife good welcome, Jarl Agravain, while we tend to our meat, and our business.’
‘You are most welcome among us,’ announced Hilde in an awkward but determined Briton dialect. Laurel raised her head at this and curtsied briefly.
‘I do thank you.’
So. Agravain did not let his expression change. It was a good device. Her feigned ignorance would encourage the women to speak freely in front of Laurel, believing she could not understand. He nodded in answer to her cautious glance, and received a reassuring press from her hand as she turned. But he could not help but stare after her a moment as Hilde steered her to the trestle table beside the blazing fire where the women of the house sat.
‘Now!’ Sifred clapped him on the back, and Agravain suffered this too without comment, not having any choice. There were a thousand ways, he knew, to insult Saxon honour. The trick throughout this meal would be in not stumbling over any new ones.
Sifred led him to a curved table, obviously another artifact salvaged from the Roman times. Their companions were a dozen men cut after Sifred’s own model: bluff, hard-bitten and bright-eyed. More than one was scarred from fighting. Many had lost some part of themselves to violence, whether a finger, half a hand, a piece of ear, or, in more than one case, an eye.
They were survivors, these men, and they sized him up as instantly and intently as he did them.
‘Meat!’ bellowed Sifred, clapping his hands loudly over their heads.
The servants came forward at once. It was, by Camelot’s standards, a crude feast, but summer’s bounty was not wasted or dismissed even here. Stews of eels and fish were served up with rough breads and accented by the spices of Andalusia. Great salmons were served up whole in their own sauce. There was, unexpectedly, wine. This was clearly a nod to his presence among them. The Saxons, Agravain knew, greatly preferred their own subtle, lethal honey meads.
Courtesy, and plentiful food, gave Agravain good cover for keeping his silence. There could be no ‘business’ discussed until after the meal. It also gave him ample opportunity to observe Sifred and his men. His command of their language was good, and he could follow most of what was said. They spoke of common matters, of the weather and trade. They exchanged what were plainly old jokes and favourite stories about long ago fights, wonders seen on voyages, and life in their homelands.
They seemed content and collegial enough, but there was an undercurrent running between them all. Agravain had expected there to be matters that would not be broached casually in front of him. He had no illusions as to his status. He was a stranger, and an enemy. He had been suffered here because of Sifred’s agreements with King Arthur, and because he had made sure that all the men he sent to sift through the Roman ruins, or to find ships from Greece and Byzantium, brought with them rich gifts for Sifred, and whoever else might demand them.
What he sensed, though, was more than just the restraint that came when entertaining a not-entirely-welcome guest. This was sharper and more brittle, the feeling that the whole gathering walked across thin ice while feeling the sun hot on the backs of their necks.
It was the women who waited on them that gave the game away. Some of them had not yet been cowed by Sifred’s glares or by the hard-handed woman who could have been Hilde’s mother. These all shot glowers at the scarred, determinedly bluff men. Their grim expressions spoke of old wounds, and promised new ones if they were ever free to work their will. They were not happy, or even stoic. They were furious, and they were hiding it badly.
Whenever he could do so without being too closely attended, Agravain looked across to the women’s humbler table. Laurel sat flanked by Hilde and Tatae, a shaft of silver among the gold. Modest, decorous, silent, she ate and drank little, but smiled much. If she spoke a single word, he could not hear what it was.
He itched to be near her. He did not like what he sensed in this place. He did not like having her out of arm’s reach, or being without his sword. Men
such as Sifred had been known to turn feasts into brawls deliberately, the laws of guesting not being seen to necessarily apply to those they considered outlanders and strangers, no matter how many fine words they spoke.
You should have considered that before you walked in here, he said sourly to himself.
‘Now then, Jarl Agravain.’ Sifred topped up Agravain’s gilded wine cup from the leather bottle of rich, Languedoc wine. ‘There are some matters I’d discuss with you, if you’re willing to turn your ear to them.’
‘Of course, my host. As you please.’ Agravain sipped the wine in judicious appreciation. It was unwatered, and traced a fiery line down his throat. Sifred had been filling his cup all night, urging him to drink. It was a transparent ploy, but Agravain did not let this deceive him. The man had not kept his grip on Londinium’s Saxons by being a strong-armed fool who thought he could get what he wanted from a wary visitor simply by getting him drunk.
Sifred tossed the wine jack on the table and lifted his own cup, settling back in his chair. The other conversations drifting languidly about the table stilled slowly, and all attention turned to their headman.
‘Now, you know,’ Sifred gestured to Agravain with his brimming cup, ‘and I know, that Arthur intends to swallow us as soon as he can. He’ll lull us with sweet words and good gifts until we may as well be blind drunk. He’ll then take us with treaty if he’s able, with swords if he must. I cannot blame him for it,’ Sifred added, holding up his hand to forestall any remark Agravain might have been about to make. ‘What man leaves an enemy unchained and unchallenged like a starving dog on his doorstep?’ He spread his hands. His men took the signal and chuckled darkly.
‘But I’ve no desire to be swallowed,’ Sifred went on, taking a deep draught of his wine as if to illustrate his point. ‘So, I’m minded to make a bargain with you.’
Agravain carefully and deliberately set his own cup down. ‘Why should I wish to enter into any bargain with you?’ he asked, keeping his tone mild, merely inquisitive. The room had gone silent. There was some muttering and snapping over at the women’s table, but the laughter and gossip there had died away too. Everyone was listening, and listening close.
