by Jack Porter
The answer was complex. Part of it was simply because I enjoyed the older woman’s company. Part of it was because her lessons made me feel capable, in a world where life and death could be measured by the width of a blade.
And part of it was that the normality of it seemed to act as a balm against all the things that were going on.
As Emmeline herself said, it was a risk even coming to her. The King wanted my blood, and had set Lancelot and his men to finding it. I was working with Galahad to seek out Anwen and another fugitive of the King, Rolf. And that old man hadn’t given up on his plans to remove the crown from King Arthur’s head.
All these realities swirled about me, and from time to time seemed to threaten to drag me under.
A simple lesson in the art of the sword, with nothing else going on except for perhaps an undercurrent of sexual tension between me and the swordsmistress, was a pleasant distraction.
But instead of trying to express all of this, I just offered a laugh. “Because I lost a fight against your other favorite student,” I said.
The elderly swordsmistress was climbing back into her leathers. “Elaine?” she asked, and I nodded. But then Lady Emmeline said something I didn’t expect.
“You shouldn’t have lost,” she said. “Unless… It wasn’t a serious fight?”
The swordsmistress was correct, but I was puzzled by how she had known. “What do you mean?”
“Elaine is very good at what she does. She is determined and will use all she’s got to win. But you. You have a talent I have seldom seen. When last we practiced, on the day you met Elaine, there was a determination in you that hadn’t been there before. Tell me truly. When you fought against Elaine, did you do so with that determination as well? Or were you just playing?”
She was right. For me, the match with Elaine had been an entertainment. A pleasant diversion. In no way had I conjured the same determination to beat her that I now did even with Lady Emmeline herself.
Ruefully, I laughed at myself, and shook my head.
At the same time, I thought back to my original rules. Once again, it seemed that I had forgotten rule number four.
Use everything you’ve got. Fight to win.
30
When I wasn’t posing as Gawain to check in with my various contacts or training with Lady Emmeline, I spent much of my time back at the Goose and Quill Tavern.
It was a comfortable place to be, and I enjoyed Ember and Jacob’s company, not to mention their fine food and exotic drinks.
Elaine spent much of her time with me, but far from all of it. She had her own life to lead, as well as her own training sessions with Lady Emmeline. I learned that included working for her father as well.
I noticed very quickly that there was some tension between Elaine and Ember. The blonde tavern keeper didn’t seem to like it much when Elaine was with me. Even though Elaine had acted in Jacob’s defense when Rolf had escaped, Ember didn’t seem to like it much when the fiery woman was there.
When Elaine was away, Ember relaxed, but even then, she seldom seemed to want to talk with me as she had done in the past. She would serve me my ale and meals, but for some reason, could no longer look me in the eye.
I thought I understood what was happening but couldn’t confirm it. Every time I sought to speak with her, though, Ember made an excuse and hurried away.
It was disappointing. I liked Ember. And didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t continue as before. So, the second night after my meeting with Galahad, instead of taking up my regular table near the wall, I chose a seat at the bar and waited until Big Jacob had a moment of free time.
“How’s the head?” I asked him.
By then, the wound at his temple was healing, but still with some way to go before turning into little more than a memory and a lighter patch of skin that fell short of being a true scar.
The jovial giant nodded amicably. He touched the scar as if reminding himself it was still there. “Not too bad,” he said. “The headaches are mostly gone now. I figure it won’t be too long before it’s all good.”
I nodded, pleased to hear it, and wondered if Meghan might have something to help speed up the healing process. At the same time, I was wondering how to broach the real subject when the big man made it easy for me.
“But you didn’t take a seat at the bar to talk about my head, did you?” he said, showing surprising insight.
I grinned at him. “Not really. Although I am glad you’re healing. It was a nasty knock you took.”
He shrugged away my concern. “It was my own damn fault. I thought the bastard would be stiff and sore from being chained up so long. Didn’t expect him to be so quick to act, or to use his own chains as a weapon.” Big Jacob paused. “That Blackcoat – he’s a tough one. Dangerous. If he comes at you again, don’t try to be nice. If you can, finish him. If you don’t, he’s just going to keep coming back.”
Perhaps Big Jacob’s words were colored by the painful interaction he’d had with the man. But that didn’t mean he was wrong. I nodded, thinking seriously about the advice, and Jacob gave me a grin.
“Let me guess. The reason you’re sitting here talking to me has to do with my sister. Am I right?”
I laughed.
“Guilty as charged,” I admitted.
“Thought so,” he said. He was quiet for a time, as if getting his thoughts into order. But then with no further prompting, he started to speak.
“Here’s the thing you might not understand,” he began. “Guys like you, you see things a little different from most. Women come, woman go, and to you, it’s all much the same. You don’t think twice about taking someone new like Elaine to your bed, even though you already got Ember singing your tune.”
I bristled at his words, in part because what he’d said didn’t ring true. It wasn’t all the same to me. The women in my life – I cherished them all. In fact, that’s why I had sought Jacob out to talk. In the hopes that I could somehow keep Ember in my life as she had been before.
But the big man hadn’t finished speaking. “Ember, though, she is not of your sort. Sure, there’s tavern wenches who like to keep their customers warm, and more than the few who use that to make a few coins on the side as well. But Ember has never been of that sort. She shares her affections only rarely, and never more than once at a time. So when she sees you with this new girl, this Elaine… well, it might surprise you to know, but she had a future planned out in her head for the both of you. And now, to her, it’s like that future is over.”
I had to admit, Jacob’s words came as a surprise. “There is no reason that future has to be over–” I began.
The big man continued to grin. “You really don’t get it, do you? The future she had in mind didn’t include you hopping into another woman’s bed whenever you felt the urge. For her, you would have been enough. I don’t think it ever occurred to her that for you, she wouldn’t be.”
All at once, I did understand. I had never said anything to Ember to indicate my feelings on the subject. I liked Ember. I really did. And I thought I had made that clear to her.
But I had never thought of her as my one and only, and indeed, didn’t even think in those terms.
I hadn’t even considered that she might not understand that there was room in my heart for more than just one woman. And in fact, that I needed more than one in my life.
Then again, perhaps that wasn’t true either. In my dreams, I had sometimes imagined settling down. Most times, those dreams had been about Meghan, but Ember had featured as well, and more recently, so had Elaine.
I didn’t even want to admit to myself that Anwen had been my partner of choice in those dreams more than once as well.
I guess I didn’t truly know my own mind on the subject, and so, for the moment, I was at a loss for words.
“So is there no hope at all?” I asked, and even I could hear the sadness in my voice.
Jacob might have heard it as well, because he sought to comfort me with
his next words. “I don’t know about no hope at all,” he said, although he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “You do seem to have a way about you that draws women your way. But right now, I think she’s confused. I don’t think she knows what she wants.”
I sighed out loud and realized the ale I had ordered remained untouched on the bar. Just to give myself a moment to think, I took a deep drink, then set the ale back down. As he often did when I stayed too long in one place, Sir George had left me to my own devices. I expected that he would be off somewhere hunting for rats, and that in due time, he would return.
“Well,” I said to the big man before me. “If you’ve got any suggestions, let’s hear them.”
Jacob uttered a laugh. “My best suggestion would be to keep it in your pants for a while,” he said. “But as I don’t think you’re built for that, then maybe give it some time. I mean, it’s not as if anything has actually changed, am I right?”
I thought about it and shook my head. Sure, Elaine was new, but even before her, there had been a number of different women in my life all at the same time.
“So it’s just that this Elaine has made it more real,” Jacobs said. “Perhaps Ember will reach a point where she can accept it. Or perhaps she will not. Either way, I’m not sure there’s much you can do.”
I nodded, a bit glumly, it’s true. “Perhaps…” I started, but hesitated to continue. Jacob was, after all, Ember’s brother.
The big man waited. “Perhaps what?”
“Perhaps you can talk to her? Tell her how much she means to me? I don’t know, say something?”
The big man looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Perhaps I will at that,” he said. “Although for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. You are a thief, Mordie. And there is danger around you wherever you go. In truth, I should kick you out of here and ban you from ever coming back. But the thing about you that has the women throwing themselves at your feet – maybe it’s working on me a bit as well. Much as I hate to admit it, I like you. So, yeah. I’ll speak with her. Can’t say as it will do any good, but I’ll give it a try.”
It was all I could ask for. I offered the big man a grin, raised my ale in a form of salute, and took another swallow.
I was still waiting to hear from Galahad when something else happened that took me by surprise.
Out of nowhere, Meghan Le Fay appeared at the Goose and Quill.
31
Elaine had gone to help her father with something, and Ember was still largely avoiding me. So I was eating a light meal at my favorite table of choice next to the wall, when all of a sudden, Meghan was there.
She had chosen to take her elderly form, that of an old, bent woman wearing multiple layers. She leaned her weight on a staff, and I could see that her fingers were festooned with jewelry, and she wore a belt full of potions around her.
I grinned broadly at her, beyond pleased to see her. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”
“I changed my mind.”
I couldn’t have been happier. “But how did you find me?”
She reached out and pointed to the wooden disc I wore at my throat, the amulet that I rubbed for luck. “I never lost you.”
Despite my joy at Meghan’s arrival, I worried that her presence might make things even more uncertain for me. Always before, I had largely managed to keep my various women apart from one another. Except for Rosylin, Maisie, and Florence, but they were a special case.
It wasn’t really deliberate. Well, maybe it was on some level. I didn’t exactly hide the fact that I slept with multiple women, but I didn’t flaunt it either.
It was mostly just easier to keep them all largely separate.
But life didn’t always turn out as planned, with Elaine coming into my life right when I needed a more consistent place to stay, it was inevitable that Ember would find out about her.
And now, with Meghan turning up unannounced… I knew without even thinking about it very hard that things could get messy. I didn’t know where Elaine stood on the question of me seeing other women. Our relationship was still new, and it hadn’t come up as a topic of conversation. But if Ember was uncomfortable with the reality of Elaine, then I would have bet heavily that she would be equally uncomfortable with Meghan.
But before I had to put it to the test, before Meghan had so much as taken the seat opposite mine, a messenger boy entered the tavern with a message for Gawain.
Big Jacob was only too happy to direct the boy my way.
He was skinny, maybe thirteen years old, and his face was starting to sprout whiskers and boils in equal measure. Ignoring Meghan entirely, he looked at me and held out his hand.
“You have a message for me?” I asked.
The boy nodded but said nothing. Just waited with his hand at the ready. So I dug in my coin pouch and found a couple of coppers, which the boy tucked quickly away.
“The message is from your friend from the church,” the boy said without further prompting. “The message is that there has been a development, and he asks for your presence.”
I stared at the boy. His message, even who it was from, was ambiguous enough so that if by some chance a Blackcoat or other should have stopped him to ask, the Blackcoat would have learnt nothing. But for me, it meant everything. The efforts I had gone to were starting to bear fruit. Or at least, Galahad’s efforts were doing so. My own network of tavern keepers, street urchins, and random people had been stubbornly silent. But now, it seemed, we were getting somewhere.
“That’s it?” I asked the messenger.
He bobbed his head once. “Do you have a return message?”
I shook my head, and the boy understood that his task was complete. Without another word, he left the Goose and Quill Tavern and disappeared out in the street.
Meghan was studying me closely. “Well,” she said. “It looks like I arrived at just the right time. How about that?”
She said it with such a broad grin that I knew it to be more than chance, or at least, that’s what she wanted me to think. I couldn’t help but wonder if the enchantress had some sort of crystal ball that I hadn’t seen, to be used for spying on me and the rest of the world.
Either way, it didn’t really matter. Meghan was right. The timing of her arrival was fortuitous. “You aren’t here to sit back and watch, I take it?” I asked her.
“After coming all this way?” she replied. “Where would the fun be in that?”
I glanced at the half-eaten food on my plate, and sighed out loud with regret. “In that case, how would you like to meet the man who told all of Camelot that I exist?”
I almost laughed at Meghan’s expression, and knew that even if she did have access to some method of seeing the future, there were things she didn’t yet know. “It’s okay,” I reassured her. “He is helping me find Anwen.”
“Well, in that case, I would be delighted to meet him.” Meghan replied.
32
Meghan maintained her guise as an old woman as we made our way to the ruined church.
As he had done many times before, Sir George found me and Meghan not long after we had left the Goose and Quill. I didn’t understand the mechanism with which he did this. How he could find me even if I had moved from where he had left me. It could have been no more mysterious than a keen sense of smell. Or it could have been a more nebulous connection, the sense of kinship that the blood in my veins gave us.
One thing was certain, it wasn’t based on him recognizing my face. He hadn’t batted a scaly eye at me when I had drunk Meghan’s potion and turned into Gawain.
For whatever reason, Meghan chose to stay in her old woman guise. For her, the transformation was more complete. It was more than just her face that changed shape and became wrinkled. Her whole body changed as well, her hands becoming akin to claws, her movements less certain, and she even developed a noticeable curve to her back.
I wondered how much of her apparent infirmity was real, but thought it might have been rude to ask it ou
t loud. After all, the enchantress still hadn’t confirmed one way or the other which, if either of the two, were her real forms. But I couldn’t help wonder if it would have been easier for her to travel as her younger, healthier self.
Either way, it wasn’t a bad day at all, as far as Camelot’s weather was concerned. We made it to the ruined church in good time and without collecting more than a few spots of rain on our faces.
We hadn’t talked a great deal as we walked, just enough for me to catch Meghan up on what had happened since I last saw her, but when she caught sight of the ruined church, her expression gained a faraway look.
And as we picked our way through the broken walls, with me trying to follow the path Elaine had taken me the first time, I caught the old enchantress reaching out to touch some of the rocks.
“Does this place mean something to you?” I asked.
Meghan nodded. “I was there when last the old church was whole.” She seemed sad at the thought. “In fact, you might even say that I am the reason it looks as it does.”
I looked at her, surprised. “I thought it was the result of lightning,” I said. Then I remembered Elaine’s other version of the story. “Or that Merlin brought the building down out of spite.”
At this, Meghan let out a quiet chuckle. “Oh, Merlin was there, that’s true enough. But I was as well.”
She seemed to be contemplating telling me more, but in the end decided against it. “It’s a tale for another time, perhaps,” she muttered.
As much as I would have liked to hear Meghan’s tale, there were more important matters to attend. I led her to the hidden door and knocked as Elaine had done.
Within a matter of moments, Galahad admitted us to into the basement.
To my distinct pleasure, Elaine was already there. But, just as her father had done upon seeing me into his domain the first time, Galahad stared at Meghan and asked, “And who have we here?”