“Druston and Bryn are older,” Mair pointed out.
Rawn halted, frowning down at the ground, working things out. “They’re not leaders,” he said softly. “They can afford the risk.”
“What risk is there in changing how one fights to a better way?”
“The risk of trying and failing,” Rawn said slowly. “Think of it, Mair. If Pellinore tried this way of fighting and couldn’t adjust properly, he might fail in the midst of battle, too. He would fall, and his house weakened.”
Mair nodded. “Then it is up to us, isn’t it? We must make sure the younger officers and fighters learn this way and rid themselves of the old way.”
Rawn laughed. “Listen to you! A Corneus warrior, dismissing the proper way to fight.”
Mair drew in a breath, startled. It was true. Corneus, the house of perfect warriors, had hewed to the proper ways for generations. It made the house strong. “If a new way is better, it should be used,” she said softly. “What Lancelot showed us…” She could still feel the jolt in her arms from blocking the powerful blow of his sword. It had been an astonishing moment. “If I can block Lancelot with a rusty Roman sword, the superiority of his way of fighting is proven, isn’t it?”
“It will prove itself on the field, in battle,” Rawn said. “For now, yes, we should continue to learn everything Lancelot can teach us.” His blue eyes settled on her face.
Mair couldn’t help it. Flashes of the night they’d had together slipped into her mind. He had looked into her eyes in this way, that night. Heat spread through her at the reminder.
He was looking at her now the way he always had in the past, before she had taken that damned second kiss. There was no animosity in his face. No bitterness in his eyes. Simply a warmth which laid between the two of them and no one else.
Rawn had forgotten they were no longer friends. She could see it in his eyes. But, so had she forgotten. They had fallen back into the old patterns, as their swords had done a while ago.
It was a stolen moment, one she was not entitled to any more. Mair wanted to weep at the loss.
It would be so easy to let the moment linger, to continue talking in this light-hearted and interesting way, as they had always done. Only, it would not be fair to Rawn.
Hating herself, hating the circumstances which made it necessary, Mair made herself say, “How did your evening with Tegan proceed?”
Rawn straightened with a snap. He blinked. All expression left his eyes and face. His jaw flexed. “That is a matter between me and the lady Tegan,” he said stiffly.
Mair nodded. The rebuke was a reasonable response. Her indelicate question had served the purpose she had intended. Rawn remembered, now, how things laid between them.
He clenched the hilt of his knife, for he wore no sword. With a stiff nod of his head, he strode away, heading for the camp.
Mair kept her gaze on his tall figure until he disappeared between the trees. She absorbed every little detail, from his broad shoulders to his muscled thighs and the hard-rounded rear which his short tunics displayed so intriguingly. She stored the details away, as one stored grain to last the lean, bleak winter to come.
Chapter Fourteen
If I could go a year without the north vexing me and tripping me up, I might make headway against the damned Saxons!” Arthur cried. His fist landed on the wide arm of the high chair.
Idris held still, glad he stood at the far back of the tent. The army and court were terrified of stirring Idris’ infamous temper, when they should be more afraid of Arthur’s. Only, Arthur never let his temper slip free where anyone but his most trusted friends might see the full power of his fury.
The object of Arthur’s anger today laid on the seat of the empty chair. Arthur scowled at the curled letter, while Merlin and Cai exchanged glances.
Bedivere and Lancelot kept their faces still.
“It might help to know what is in the letter,” Merlin said, his tone mild.
“Read the damn thing!” Arthur replied.
Merlin stepped forward and scooped up the letter. “Here, sit,” he told Arthur. “Let me read this, then we can consider the matter. Go on.”
The directive was sharply put. Idris recognized what Merlin was attempting to do. Idris looked up at the sword hanging on pegs behind the chair, up high where anyone who entered the tent could see it. Excalibur gleamed in the lamplight. Arthur no longer hung his sword over the back of the chair, like discarded linens.
Despite the sword and its meaning, Arthur still avoided the big chair, even now. He glared at Merlin and remained beside it.
“Lot, again, Arthur?” Cai asked, his tone just as meek as Merlin’s.
Arthur rubbed at his temple. “Lot claims Urien’s murder was a Saxon plot. And upon the very same page, he accuses Caradoc’s wife of arranging the matter.” Arthur sighed. “It would be nice if the man could make up his mind before he presents his arguments. He looks like a fool, pointing at everyone but himself.”
Idris stirred. “I should return to the north before things unravel more than they have.”
“No,” Merlin said, his gaze on the letter in his hands. “Not yet.”
Arthur glanced at Merlin, his eyes narrowing. “Why not?”
Merlin lifted his gaze to Arthur. “What did you say?”
“Why should Idris not go north?”
Merlin frowned. “Oh.” He considered, lowering the letter. His gaze shifted to the high chair. “For one, we have a coronation to arrange.”
Arthur whirled away from the chair, with a hiss of impatience.
Idris wondered why Merlin had lied. He had only thought of the coronation after looking at the chair. What had he not said? Had he seen something in the stars of which he would not speak?
Merlin moved to the chair and rested his hand on the arm. His gesture was reverent, unlike Arthur’s thump of his fist. “All of Britain is ready to declare you High King, Arthur. You can put it off no longer.”
Arthur waved Merlin away. “There is too much to do. I cannot halt an entire nation for some silly ceremony.”
“The ceremony is not for you,” Merlin replied. “It is for everyone to see you are properly made the High King, and your fate joined with the land.”
“Fine,” Arthur snapped. “Dunk me in the river tomorrow at dawn and call it done.”
Merlin’s jaw flexed and worked. His eyes shifted from black to deepest night. “You are High King of Britain!” he railed. “Get it through your stubborn head, Arthur. You cannot remain war duke forever. This will happen. Britain demands you take the throne. Her people deserve their rightful High King.”
Cai cleared his throat. Bedivere shifted on his feet. No one spoke. They did not dare.
Arthur’s gaze met Idris’. “Do you feel this way, old friend? Do you demand this of me, too?”
Caution made Idris pause and consider his words. “If you feel now is not the time—”
Lancelot sighed and got up from the chest. “Oh, for the love of the gods! Arthur, do you not understand? When the Saxons learn you have been made High King, it will stab at their hearts. It will tell them all of Britain is behind you, even the troublesome north.” He picked up the wine cup Arthur had put aside earlier and thrust it toward him. “As the High King there are things you can do, measures you can take, which a mere war duke cannot.”
Arthur gripped the cup. “Name one.” His tone was calmer. More reasonable. The idea of kingship as a weapon had caught his attention.
Lancelot considered. “For one…there is not a maiden in the land who will deny you.”
Cai snorted, then tried to cover his laugh by coughing.
Arthur smiled. Then he laughed and finished the wine with a single great gulp and tossed the cup back at Lancelot. “I apologize,” he told everyone. “I am being selfish. On days like this I would rather be on the lake, fishing.” He glanced fondly at Cai and Merlin.
“Those days are long gone, Emrys,” Merlin said gently.
“I kno
w.” Arthur sighed. “Go ahead with your arrangements, Merlin. For the solstice, when there is less danger of Saxons interrupting the thing. And as a favor to me…could we do it with the minimum amount of fuss and ceremony?”
Merlin shook his head. “I think the priests and bards will have a different idea about the most auspicious time for your crowning, and also what would be the appropriate amount of…fuss.”
Arthur scowled. “The solstice, and not before,” he said sharply.
Idris knew that tone well. Arthur had drawn a line.
Merlin knew it too. He bowed. “Very well, my lord.”
THE DAYS FLEW BY WHILE Mair learned Lancelot’s way of fighting. It was not just her who called the new style his. Everyone named it that, although many of the people used the name as an epithet. Lancelot was not a popular man, although the lack of acceptance did not seem to bother him at all. He calmly went about his affairs, training warriors, and recruiting drivers and fighters for his precious chariots, which caused even more laughter and raw observations about the man’s mental stability.
Mair ignored the gossip. She was too busy. On the next day, she rounded up the entire Queen’s Cohort, including Claire, and led them to the clearing in the forest to learn Lancelot’s way of fighting.
During that first morning, Lancelot moved around the lines of fighters moving through their drills to consider the rows of women. He pulled Mair aside. “The Cohort use shortened shields, yes?” His gaze roamed over the lines.
“And longer, lighter swords, for the reach, which we don’t naturally have,” Mair replied, wiping sweat from her brow, for the day was warm. “Also, cudgels, bows and stabbing knives.”
He nodded. “Bring a shield with you, tomorrow. I would like to examine it.”
Mair raised her brow. “They are made the same way as any other shield.”
“What if they were not? What if, say, the bottom edge was sharpened like a knife?”
Mair’s mouth dropped open, as ideas and images bloomed like flowers in spring.
Lancelot laughed. “I can see the idea appeals to you.”
Mair brought her shield the next day. Over the coming days, they brought their weapons and equipment a piece at a time. Each time, Lancelot would prod and turn and examine, then make suggestions about how the weapon or tool could be used, in better and different ways.
Mair agreed with everything he suggested, her admiration for the way Lancelot’s mind worked building day by day. He was an utterly ruthless, implacable warrior, with no room in his head or heart for anything but total and complete victory over the Saxons. “For they will give us no leniency, ever,” Mair heard Lancelot tell one of the younger fighters, as he corrected the boy’s grip.
The most fascinating aspect of Lancelot’s way of fighting was the way it could and did change from day to day and even minute by minute. Flexibility was built into the way he thought. As he had with the Cohort’s weapons and strategies, Lancelot could pick up a weapon which was new to him, and not discard it because it was unknown. He would, instead, examine it and put it to new, deadly uses. He approached anything new to him the same way. Nothing was useless, not even the hair combs the women used to keep their hair out of the way while fighting. “An edge or sharp corner on the comb can be an unexpected weapon which will lay open a face or gouge out an eye. When a Saxon has you by the throat, you will be glad of it,” Lancelot told them.
Sharpening hair combs became part of their nights around the Calleva fire pit, after that.
“There is honor, and there is victory,” Lancelot often said. “It would be better if victory was won with honor, but a victory by any means will do, for the Saxons do not abide by rules of engagement.”
Because the tactics and methods the Cohort used were different from the fighters in the main host, Lancelot asked Mair to demonstrate to the women and drill them herself. “It will be better received coming from you, than from the mad fool of the Perilous Forest,” Lancelot told her. His black eyes twinkled.
Mair pressed her lips together. “You know they call you that?” She was horrified.
“Oh, I’ve heard far worse,” Lancelot assured her.
So had Mair. She kept her face rigid.
Lancelot patted her shoulder. “Better to be thought a fool and live, than to die a useless death on the battlefield as an amiable man.”
Mair noticed Rawn among the ranks of men, which grew in number daily, although she did not speak to him. She stayed with the Cohort at the north end of the clearing. By the time she had finished with the women and had reported to Lancelot on their progress, Rawn was usually gone.
Mair told herself she preferred it that way. Then neither of them could fall back into old habits. Lancelot had no time or tolerance for old ways, habits and traditions, especially when they made a fighter less effective. She would be wise to emulate his attitude.
At night, when Mair returned from meeting with the Cohort around the Calleva fire pit, she would fall upon her bed and sleep more soundly than she had in months. She didn’t see Bedivere and Lucan for days at a time, unless they lingered at the campfire with the Corneus men until she returned to her tent.
That was what both of them did, one night not long after she had begun training with Lancelot. They rose to their feet as Mair walked tiredly back to the tent and met her in front of it.
Mair looked from Lucan’s serious, thin face, to Bedivere’s brown eyes. “I see you brought an army with you, this time,” she told Bedivere. “Mid-summer is days away yet and Arthur has made no announcement about releasing the clans.”
Bedivere gripped the hilt of his sword. “We can get to matters about Corneus in a moment. Is it true? Are you associating with Lancelot? Learning his mad ways?”
“Mad?” Mair laughed. “Since when did a desire to win become madness?”
Bedivere scowled.
“He is a heretic, Mair,” Lucan said, his tone gentle. “He has no reverence for authority, for…for tradition.”
Mair sobered. “If by that, you mean he has no regard for pomposity, then you are right. Lancelot is more driven to defeat Saxons than any man here, except Arthur himself.”
“Mair!” Lucan said, shocked. “That is…offensive.”
“Is it?” Mair kept her tone reasonable. “Bedivere, you are a great fighter. Everyone knows it. Yet if a Saxon had you by the throat, you would die an honorable death rather than stab him in the back with a blade you tucked into your boot.”
Bedivere drew in a shocked breath. “That is what he teaches people in that clearing of his?”
“He teaches people how to survive.”
“At what cost?” Lucan said, his tone pedantic.
“At any cost!” Mair cried. “Do you think Saxons give a damn about honor and rules? Why do you think the Romans conquered Britain? Because they didn’t care who won a challenge of single combat. When they had finished laughing, they ran right over the top of us!”
Both Bedivere and Lucan glanced around, for Mair’s voice had risen. The soldiers around the closer fires had fallen silent and were openly observing them.
Bedivere lifted his hand in a shushing gesture.
Mair shook her head. “No, I won’t stay meek and quiet.” She stepped back and drew her sword.
Instinctively, both Bedivere and Lucan also moved away from her.
“Mair, for the stars’ sake…!” Lucan said.
Bedivere’s eyes narrowed.
“Draw, brother,” Mair said. “Let me show you what Lancelot teaches in that clearing of his.”
More of the Corneus contingent watched, now. Good. Mair wanted them to see this.
Lucan shook his head. “You’ve never won against Bedivere. Neither have I. Put your sword up, girl.”
“Draw, Bedivere,” Mair crooned.
Bedivere drew his sword.
Mutters ran through the men.
Mair crooked her fingers, beckoning Bedivere to her. She raised her sword over her head.
“I won�
�t spare you,” Bedivere warned.
“Neither would a Saxon,” she assured him and leapt.
It was shockingly easy to overcome Bedivere. She had observed him in mock battles and in training for many years and knew every move he would make. He had few habits, although he did have some and because he was not threatened by her, he fell back into them.
Mair blocked his sword, then again as he swung it around for her vulnerable left flank. His next move would likely be a jab with his elbow to her chin or nose, to blind her. It wasn’t a strictly honorable move, yet it was an effective one in close quarters.
Mair ducked under his rising elbow, reversed her sword and rammed the hilt into Bedivere’s belly, where the leather armor folded and was weakest.
As he folded over in reaction to the blow, she brought the hilt down on the back of his neck.
Bedivere fell to the ground with an impact which pushed the wind out of him.
Mair reversed the sword once more, then brought the edge up against Bedivere’s neck, as he laid breathing heavily. “I pulled my blows, brother. It would have been a blade in your belly and a severed spine, if you had been a Saxon.”
Mutters and gasps spread around the camp.
Mair put her sword away and held her hand out to Bedivere. He looked at her hand, as he propped himself up on one elbow. He was still wheezing.
“You’re predictable, Bedivere,” Mair told him. “The longer you insist on fighting only the proper way, the more predictable you become. Do you think the Saxons haven’t studied how we fight? Do you think they are not learning more, with every battle?”
Lucan held his hand over his lower face, attempting to look thoughtful. He was hiding his reaction from Bedivere. Bedivere did not react well to having his dignity bruised.
Mair shook her extended hand. “Take it, brother,” she said. She lowered her voice, so only Lucan and Bedivere would hear her. “Let the men see you and I talk easily, because you are open-minded and progressive. Or I can walk away now and leave you sitting in the dirt for the world to see.”
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