For Camelot's Honor

by Sarah Zettel

  “Sir.” She should kneel, she realized. She bent her knee, but the king stopped her.

  “None of that, Elen. There is no need.”

  So, she stood before the king, head unbowed as he walked around the pond that held the moon and stood beside her. Even here he carried the spear with him. He rested it on his shoulder, easily, like a laborer might carry his hoe. In the moonlight, he was very pale and his hair was more silver than gold. Only his blue eyes remained strong and bright.

  “So, I am not the only one who chases sleep this night.” He smiled wanly at her.

  Elen licked her lips, truly disconcerted at finding another living person here. It seemed she had forgotten she was not the sole inhabitant of this place. “I am sorry,” she said, rallying manners and wits together. “I did not mean to disturb you …”

  He shook his head. “I think I wanted to be disturbed. I usually lock the door behind me.” An owl hooted in one of the perfectly tended trees. Elen shivered. Owls were omens of death, and murder

  Gwiffert glanced up. “Yes. It’s a hard night, for all its beauty.”

  “What keeps you from your bed?” Elen asked before she could remember again that this man ranked above her, and it was not customary to ask such questions of kings.

  But Gwiffert did not seem to mind. “The future keeps me awake,” he said heavily. “It has come at last, as I begged it to so many times, but now that I see it, I am not sure I want it.” He looked down into the pool, watching the moon’s reflection.

  Watching him watch the moon, Elen realized what this place reminded her of. It reminded her of Olwen’s well at mid-winter, the time of sacrifice and sacred fire, when the gods might be called down for blessing or prophecy.

  “You saw …” she began tentatively. “Your majesty is a seer?”

  He frowned at the word. “I have some skills that let me see further than most men, and I thank the gods for them,” he said. “Without, we would have been dead long since, even with the spear.” He turned the shaft against his shoulder.

  “And yet you cannot find the Great King’s fortress?” Elen’s brow furrowed.

  Gwiffert shook his head. “He blinds my sight. Perhaps it is part of the gaes that keeps us here … I do not know.” He swung the spear down, cradling it into the crook of his arm again. “But it may be we will find a way even in our darkness. He gives me great hope, your husband.”

  Elen felt herself smile softly. “Yes. He’s skilled at that.”

  The king regarded her searchingly for a moment, but what he was looking for, she could not tell. Whatever it was, it had taken the little smile from his face. “He asks a mighty thing of me.” He spoke the words so softly, they were almost lost on the night’s wind. “To defeat my own enemy, only to have to turn and risk all in another battle. I can scarcely even think that far, and when I try, I feel only a shameful fear.”

  Guilt touched Elen, and the memory of the Grey Men surrounding Geraint, the way they rode their silent horses toward her, remorseless death in the guise of life. “I am sorry,” she said, and she meant it. “But I too have an enemy that must be defeated. He has slain my family and conquered my lands.” Mother. Yestin. Dead and perhaps defiled. The rest … Oh, Mother Rhiannon, where are the rest? “I have been told that only the spear will defeat him.”

  “I should have known such a thing would be the price of our final delivery.” The king spoke to the moon’s reflection. A breeze answered him, rippling across the water and distorting the shining sphere. “We make bargains with the invisible and the fantastic, and sooner or later, the price comes due.”

  A question nagged at Elen, and as the king seemed well inclined to talk of these things, she decided to ask. “How came you to hold the spear, Sir?”

  “Ah.” He sighed and straightened slowly, as if lifting a great weight. “That is a long tale. Longer than yours, I think.” He looked down at the spear, fondly, as a man might look at a pet dog, or a child. A spark of mischief blossomed over him and the sideways glance he gave her was sly. “Longer than the tale of how you come to be in my private garden.”

  Had she heart in her, Elen would have blushed at that. “I heard a sound, it woke me. I saw …” she stopped. How to explain the portentous thing she saw?

  But the king was not content with silence. “What did you see?” he pressed her.

  She told him of the goldsmith at his forge, his ravaged face, the endless chain he worked.

  All mischief bled away from Gwiffert. “You saw the smith?”

  She nodded. “What is he?”

  King Gwiffert was silent for a long moment, resting his hand protectively against the spear. “He haunts this place,” he said at last. “No, haunts is the wrong word …” but the right word did not seem to come. “I see him some nights when I walk the halls,” he said instead. “I think … I think that chain is the fetter. I think it may be what keeps all things bound to this place by his master’s command.”

  Elen thought again of the blind, ravaged face that somehow yet saw so clearly. I’m the first one. I’m responsible for all the others. All of them are my working. “I have never heard of such a thing.”

  “No,” said Gwiffert flatly. “I doubt very much that anyone has.”

  For a moment, Elen felt lost. She wanted to be of use, but she also was alone here, and all that was hers was so far away. She was not sure she even had life to call her own. “If any can help you against your enemy, it will be Geraint, Sir.” Though she knew these words to be true, they sounded weak in her own ears. “This much I can promise you.”

  “Can you?” His eyes were mournful. “I pray to all the gods you may be right, Sister. It is …” He shook his head and tried to laugh a little, but failed. “It is a hard thing to trust strangers who come to bear away what I have depended on for so many years.”

  He did look small then, and young, as if he were not much older than she was. “It may be another way comes to light over the next few days.” Elen wanted to say they could wait until all was right here, that then he could ride out at the head of his own army to Pont Cymryd, but she knew there was no time. The gods alone knew what Urien had done to her home and her people. It was too much to hope that Arthur’s men had arrived already, no matter how swiftly Geraint’s brother had travelled. She hated her need suddenly, she hated all that had driven her to this place, but it was real, and here she must stand.

  “Together we will defeat our enemies,” she said and she tried hard to believe it.

  “Perhaps,” the Little King answered softly. Then he settled the butt of the spear on the toe of his boot. He seemed to draw assurance from that gesture. He straightened his shoulders and his smile returned. “But come, you need your rest yet. You have been through a great deal.” He held out his hand to her.

  “As have you.” She looked at his hand. It was a city courtesy she knew, but her house had never adopted it. No one took her hand who was not a member of her family … or Geraint.

  “Yes, but I have had many a long night to grow used to my sleeplessness. Come, lady.” His hand stayed where it was. It would be brown in daylight, and it was much calloused. She reached out and took it and found it was warm with remembered sunlight and the heat that life brought. He held her cold hand gently and escorted her through the silver-banded door. Once inside, he let her go to carefully lock that door with a key he brought out from under his shirt. Then, taking her hand, he walked her back down the narrow corridors to her room. He bowed to her and she thought she saw something soft shining in his eyes as he did. Then, he left her there.

  It was not until she lay down again, and Calonnau was settling back to sleep that Elen realized Gwiffert had not told her how he came to possess Manawyddan’s spear.

  When she woke to the dawn, she would not remember that at all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  From around the corner, Gwiffert watched Elen’s door for a thoughtful time, until he was certain she would not emerge from it again.

  She
is safe and quiet. The night is dealt with. It is the morrow you must see to now.

  Gwiffert turned on his heel and strode swiftly down the narrow corridor. For him, the way was straight and clear, and he followed it with an unerring instinct, as a bird follows the way to its own nest.

  He emerged into the yard. The night was black and the sky heavy with clouds. Torches flared about the courtyard, giving light in the darkness. There were boys here whose job it was to walk the walls all night and make sure the lights did not go out. There should always be light about Gwiffert’s hall. He was most clear on this command. Too many things were made bold by darkness, even if he had them conquered by daylight. It was not his wish to have to fight old battles over again.

  Two of those boys hurried by now, heads down, feet flying, lanterns clutched as close as they could to their bodies without burning themselves, clearly hoping to pass unnoticed. Gwiffert stopped them with a word and their faces went pale as they approached and knelt.

  He pointed to the first of the boys, whose red brows and freckles stood out sharply against his snow white skin. “You will find me Taggart and Rhys and tell them I await them at the barrows.”

  The boy was on his feet in an instant and running as fast as he could for the hall. Gwiffert spared him neither glance nor thought. “You will bring that lantern and come with me.”

  The boy gulped and stood, shaking in his fear. But his fear of his king was worse than his fear of waited outside the gates. Gwiffert had seen to that as well, and the boy made no sound as he walked beside Gwiffert to the gate, carrying the bright spark of man-made fire with him.

  Other halls had small portals in their walls so that men and horses might pass easily one at a time when the gates themselves were sealed against the night or coming war. This hall had none such. No one came or went save by the gates, and none without the master’s knowledge or permission. He stood before the heavy portals knocked on them three times with the butt of his spear. The great gates flew open and outwards, the gust of wind buffeting Gwiffert where he stood. He walked into the dark night, his spear resting on his shoulder, with the little lantern-bearer beside him, his bare feet making no noise on the cold ground.

  To the north of the hall grew a dense wood of thorn and rowan trees, so thickly over-grown with brambles and nettles that passage through it would look impossible to any passer-by.

  But that same tangle opened before Gwiffert, the spear and the light as easily as the gates had opened, and he walked without hinderence. So too did the trembling boy. The woods were still and stuffy as a closed hall, even when they emerged into the clearing of the barrows.

  There were twelve of the mounds, rising in a ring. Each hillock was of a size and shape that it might hold a single man as he lay in repose. One of them was open, exposing a hollow bed of naked black dirt. One of them was always open.

  The boy crouched on the ground, trying to be small enough to hide behind the fire carried. Gwiffert stood in the circle of that light and raised the spear, holding it like a bar in both hands over his head.

  “Come!” called Gwiffert to the night. “Caddrig, Caddugo, and Celanedd! Your master calls!”

  Before him, three of the mounds shuddered and shifted. Then the ground parted sweetly, a cloak opening at a buffet of wind. Out they came, the three Grey Men, mounted on their lean steeds, their horned helms on their heads, their silver swords naked in their fists. They rode toward him, swift and silent as ghosts, bringing with them a tang of metal, blood and earth. They reined their horses to a halt before him and raised their blades in salute. They held that pose, waiting, ready to serve their lord and master in all things.

  The boy bowed his head and shut his eyes tight. Gwiffert turned his back on the motionless riders without fear, and waited. Then, a new spark appeared on the track his passage had opened. Taggart and Rhys, the two seasoned fighting men he’d styled his captains, approached. Taggart was the taller and the older of the two. Both his long hair and beard had gone stone grey. He held a torch high to light the way. Rhys was still brown-haired. His rough hands were tattooed with sacred signs that had never once saved him. Both men saw the three riders arrayed behind their king, and they froze in their tracks, their living bodies balking at the nearness of the dead. Gwiffert smiled and lifted his free hand, beckoning them forward. Rhys closed his eyes, his mouth moving. Did the man still pray after all this time? He should know full well that Gwiffert would not permit any god to hear such a prayer.

  Taggart, wiser, or perhaps more resigned to his fate, knelt and bowed his greying head. Rhys, holding the torch before him, as if it were a shield, also knelt.

  “You summoned us, Majesty?” asked Taggart, his voice was hoarse, betraying the fear he had kept from his demeanor.

  “I did.” Gwiffert smiled benignly over the men. “I wished to commend you for your conduct with our outlandish knight, Sir Geraint, this day.”

  Taggart licked his cracked lips. “Thank you, Majesty.” He did not lift his gaze from the ground. The torchlight flickered and shivered as Rhys’s marked hands shook.

  “Tomorrow you ride out with him, in search of an enemy, do you not?” The inquiry was casual, the answer known to all. It was not knowledge Gwiffert sought to gain in this audience.

  “Yes, Majesty,” said Taggert, his voice fainter now.

  Gwiffert spoke slowly, giving the men time to fully understand his words. It would not do to have them forgetting a single one. “It is vital that he understand the Grey Men to be the Great King’s followers, do you understand? There must be no hint in word or deed that it is otherwise. It is the Great King that they follow and whom you fear.”

  “Yes, Majesty,” breathed Taggert.

  “And you, Rhys, do you understand?”

  Rhys bowed his head, but that was not enough.

  “Rhys. Look at me.”

  For a moment, Rhys could not bring himself to obey, and Gwiffert wondered, amused, if he would have to lay his hand on the man. But then, the head jerked up and the brown eyes opened. They were bright with tears, as if the mind behind them were still a child’s. Gwiffert’s smile broadened, knowing the man saw so clearly the three riders behind him, and how still they stood, how well they waited.

  “Do you understand your charge, Rhys?” he asked again, softly as the night’s own whisper.

  “Yes, Majesty,” he rasped.

  “Good.” Gwiffert nodded. “Because Rhys, it is you I will hold responsible if Sir Geraint wavers in his understanding.” A single tear slid down the man’s sallow cheek. “Yes, Majesty,” he said again.

  “Good,” said Gwiffert, fully satisfied. “Now, walk with me,” he gestured toward the path with his free hand. “It is past time we all sought our beds, is it not?”

  The men before him bowed their heads as he passed them by. The boy rose carefully to his feet, turning as fast as he dared so as not to see the men, the living and the dead who followed behind. All together, they walked to the edge of the tangled wood, the king and the boy leading the way, the riders guarding the rear with their silent presence and their scent of the grave.

  At the edge of the wood, Gwiffert paused briefly and turned to his riders. They raised their swords and sheathed them, and knowing all their commands without need of clumsy words. They touched up their silent horses and rode away from the light until the darkness swallowed them up.

  “Come now,” he said, turning his attention back to his men waiting silently with him in the circle of golden light. “Let us all go home.”

  The moon was well past its zenith by the time Adev, headman of Llanthoney, son of Hova the Black, who had once wrestled a breeding wolf to the ground, reached the edge of the wood. Above him, the wind blew across the bare crest of the mountain, bending the grass so that it rippled silver and black in the moonlight. A single standing stone pointed itself at the stars, its moonshadow stretching long and grey beneath it.

  This was said to be the exact center of the little country. This was the place, they
said, where the Little King stood and worked his fearful enchantment, and raising up the mountains and bringing down the sky to fence in his captives and fence out the gods.

  Adev didn’t believe it. One like the Little King — Adev didn’t even like to think his name — would not leave the heart of his working so exposed. If there was a center to this place, it was inside the king’s hall, buried deep under its stones and its spells. It was not out here where any fool, even Adev the Fool, could reach it.

  Adev’s feet ached. His body stooped in its weariness, for he had taken no rest since he set out, nor had he brought more than a crust of bread for his journey. His wife had wept to see him go, for they both knew he did not expect to return.

  At least, not as he was

  He tried to tell himself it did not matter. All that mattered was that he, Adev, even in the winter of his years, had come here.

  He knew to come here on the night of the full moon the way one knows a story told in childhood. Even in the land of the Little King, there was gossip. Whispers were passed around the hearth with the beer jug. Wives talked to each other over the loom or the birthing bed, and some of them whispered in their husband’s ear in the time just before dawn. They spoke of the king’s enemy, and how he rode out on such nights, looking for those in thrall to Gwiffert, to kill them, or, if the lightest whispers were to be believed, to free them.

  His hall was full of the living, they said. His enchanted wall was the one thing that could blind the Little King, and he could have stayed safe behind it, but he rode out still, as his father had. So they said.

  Adev would have dismissed this, if he had not seen it once. Once, when he was a boy, he had run from the village. He had seen his father, whom wolves could not kill, ridden down by the grey men. Fear and fury had driven him out to find the borders of the land, to find a breach, a tunnel, a secret road that would take them all home. Instead, he had found the black owl and the Grey Men. He would have died had not the Great King in his chariot come, swinging his war club, scattering the Grey Men like dolls, while Adev cowered on his knees. When he could stand, did he follow the Great King to take up arms with the one who saved his life? No. He ran back to the village to live a slave, because he’d seen the grinning faces beneath the helmet and the naked skulls with their sealed brands, because he saw how Gwiffert stole even honest death from those who displeased him.