by Sarah Zettel
“It is Morgaine’s blood that flows through Geraint,” said the king.
Elen shook her head violently. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears like a child being told unwanted news. “It cannot be. He is nephew to Arthur, he …”
“Yes.” That single word cut off all her protestations. “It is Morgaine’s kindred that sit on the high throne and seek to rule the land over.”
Elen could not stand still anymore. She turned and ran from the king, even as she had run from the weeping woman. She ran to the doorway, and saw only darkness through it. Nightmares waited in there, but nightmares waited here as well.
She gripped the cold stone of the lintel as if she could break it with her fingers. “If this is true …” she turned her head so she would not have to look into the dark mouth of the doorway. “If he … they … are Morgaine’s kindred, why would Urien try to rise up against them? He is Morgaine’s.”
Gwiffert’s laugh was grim. “What could be better? He keeps the secret of their alliance, and he conquers and holds those lands Arthur cannot. He brings to him those men who will not go to Arthur. Then, once all the island is shared out between these two, she rises up to rule her brother and her lover.”
A deep plan, twisted and dark, just what Morgaine would do. It could be worked with glamor and with secrets. It could all be held behind her black eyes and pressed forward with her disguises. Oh, yes. Elen felt certainty like a knife against her skin, waiting to cut deeper. It was very much a thing Morgaine the Sleepless would do.
But not Geraint. Never Geraint. “No.” She struggled to bring order to her thoughts. “Arthur has honor. It is all that is said of him.” Mother had believed in Arthur’s honor. So had Yestin.
“Arthur’s bards speak of his honor,” said Gwiffert softly. “And Arthur’s kin.”
Elen looked at her hand where it gripped the edge of the stones. Her fingers were crooked, like Calonnau’s talons. Crooked and weak. She felt weak, as weak and as sick as she had felt in the great hall, but there was no one here to help bear her away, save the king who told her these horrors.
Slowly, as if she had become an old woman, she turned to face him. “Why tell me this now?”
Gwiffert took one step toward her, then another. He breathed like a man who expects each to be his last. His heart drummed hard. She felt it beneath her skin. “Because I cannot bear to see you with him anymore,” whispered the king. “Because I cannot watch you love one who is so close to your enemy.”
“He is not.” She spoke the words deliberately, making each one strong. She must be strong. She must hold fast. This could not be. She would not allow it to be.
Gwiffert moved closer. The moonlight showed her his wide, slanting eyes, and they were sad, but there was anger in them. “Then why did he not tell you who he is?”
“For shame.” She could barely speak. Her throat was a knot of pain. But if it were true … but it could not be true, but then did Gwiffert lie? She looked deep in those eyes, and she could find no lie there.
He touched her, laying his hand lightly on her sleeve. “You say these things because you are proud. Too proud to admit you have lain down with your enemy.”
Gods. Gods all. Could it be true? Elen shuddered. She had stood before Morgaine and seen the sorceress’s true visage. She remembered the face clearly, the black hair, the burning eyes. The eyes, so sharp and watchful, even when she wore the guise of a crone. Those eyes took in each detail, barely blinking, never straying, knife-bright and knife-keen.
Did Geraint have Morgaine’s eyes?
No. It was wrong. It could not be as he said. But she could not think why. All she could see were Morgaine’s black eyes, and Geraint’s blue ones, and all became tangled in dream and nightmare whirling together in her mind until she could see nothing at all.
“Elen.” Gwiffert’s hand tightened where he held her. “I am sorry.”
“It cannot be as you say.” She forced the words out, her voice harsh as any crow’s.
“Why not? Why else would she have made you so strong?”
“Strong?” I am not strong. If I were strong I would move from this. I would fly. I would know what the truth is. If I were strong, I would not be so afraid.
“You are deathless, Elen. I’ve seen that proved in battle. You can reach your will to wherever the hawk flies.” Gwiffert laid his hand on her cheek, on her shoulder. “Why would she make you so strong if she had not meant to use you?”
His touch was warm. It soothed her. She felt his heartbeat through his hand, steadying her, filling her emptiness. She took a step closer to him. She was so cold, so still. She wanted to feel living warmth. She needed it. She was afraid and fear left her cold as the grave.
“Elen,” breathed the king, and his breath was sweet with life. “Elen, you deserve so much more than this.”
His heart was very loud now, very near. She could reach out and lay her palm over it. It was almost as if it was within her, as if she were strong and whole. His mouth brushed her brow. Warmth. Life to overwhelm the despair. She wanted … she wanted …
She moved closer. She tipped her mouth up and looked in his bright blue eyes.
And saw the hawk and the spear and memory of her dreams flooded her, sending her stumbling backwards into the darkened threshold. “No!” she croaked. “No,” she said. She looked at the Little King, all wreathed in moonlight, his expression that of a young man wounded in love.
No. Why? Why? “I will not betray,” she said, drawing herself up. Remember who you are. Whose daughter, whose hope. “Not even for this.”
“What betrayal?” Gwiffert flung his empty hand out. “He is blood of your enemy. Do you think Morgaine the all-seeing did not know it was his path she set you in the middle of?” Anger poured from him. “What will you do with this man of yours?” He demanded. “Take him back and set him up in your cantrev as lord? Morgaine’s nephew as lord of Pont Cymryd and its bridge?” He moved closer to her, coming into the shadows with her. “She cannot lose. Either her lover or her kin will hold your lands over your mother’s body.”
“I am his wife, whether I willed it at first or no. It is law and I will not break it.”
“What do you care?” cried the king. “You do not need him. I can bring you vengeance.” He was so close now, coming to her like a lover. He feared for her, he was as sorrowful at her obstinance as he was angry. “It is I who hold your enemy’s death in my hand. I will help you, Elen. I will do it for your own sake, not for land or kin or honor or any of these lesser things. For you alone.” He wanted, he needed, and so too did she. It would be so easy. Her heart and Geraint were so far away, and both had already played her so false.
But an older, deeper need held her firm. “It is my honor,” she said. “It is the honor of my family, though they lie dead beneath the ground.” She drew herself up. She was so cold, but at least in this she was sure. “If I break the law, it is them I shame, and I will not do it.”
Gwiffert’s gaze sharpened, love and longing falling behind. “Then what will you do, Elen? In the face of all you know now, what will you do?”
What will I do? What can I? Honor. Honesty. Those are all I have left. “I will tell him what I know. I will hear what he has to say.”
The king shook his head slowly, without taking his gaze from her. “He will lie, Elen.”
“Then I will know him for what he is.” She turned, facing the black corridors. “If he has come to me in deception, I owe him nothing.”
She stood there, trying to root herself in those words, trying not to think how it would be if everything Geraint had said was born from the lie of his blood, and realising, absurdly, she could go nowhere, because she could not see.
Warmth touched her skin. She turned her head a little. Gwiffert stood behind her, holding out a tin lantern in which a tallow candle burned.
She accepted the light silently, and alone she walked down the corridors, heading for the great hall, taking all she knew and all she felt to G
eraint wherever he was. With each step she heard the same words in her mind.
He will lie. He will lie.
Until at last those words entered her blood, and she did not anymore remember they had not come from her.
Behind her, the Little King breathed, “Go with her my mouse. It is not good that the lady should be alone at such a time.”
The grass rustled in response and grew still, and Gwiffert looked into the shadows, and smiled.
Chapter Twenty
The fires burned high in the great hall, washing out the shadows in a flood of red and gold light, and making all the paintings dance in the flicker of the flames. Women scurried to and fro, carrying crocks and blankets, canvas bundles and leathern sacks. No one slept this night. No one would. There was all the work of war to do.
She knew these things only distantly. What was most clear to her was that Geraint was not there.
Nor would he be. He will be where the captains are.
Moving like one half-asleep, Elen drifted to the great doors. She had to find him. She had to hear what lie he would tell her. She had to know the truth of him. She had to know what she had truly done when she had told him she would be his wife.
The yard was at least as busy as the hall. Horses and ponies were being led from the stables and examined by soldiers and stable hands alike for soundness. Harnesses were being shaken out and mended where needed. Everywhere were the shouts of voices, the reek of fires, the ringing of hammers.
Hammers within, hammers without. Elen held back a wild giggle. Only I am silent. Only Geraint and me.
Even through the crowd and the uncertain light of torches and lanterns, she found him easily. She knew him so well now, how he looked, how he stood, how he spoke. All his disguise to hide the blood within him, she knew it perfectly.
He stood in the middle of a crowd of men in plain tunics and breeches. One of them was holding up a wooden tablet, showing him some tally or the other written on its wax face. He did not look tired. He looked strong and in his place, surrounded by the racket or armorers, horses, men, and weapons. Every inch the knight, the man of war. Every inch the commander, seeing to all the details … letting nothing escape his eye.
His eye, his storm blue eye. Was it those eyes she saw in her dreams, those eyes that brought her death? She swayed on her feet. She had to see him now. She had to look into those eyes and see Morgaine there.
But it was Geraint who moved. He looked up from the tally book he was being shown, touched the man on the shoulder and left him, coming swiftly to where she stood before the oaken doors.
“Elen, what is it?”
How could she even speak? He was so close. She felt his heart shuddering through her frame, the heart of Morgaine’s kindred, the reason she was enslaved and half-mad. He stood before her, her husband made hers by stealth and violence.
“Tell me, Elen.”
He will lie.
Then I will know.
She did not want to know that. She wanted to believe. She did not want to know she had given herself to her enemy so much more than she had been forced.
But she was chief and the daughter of chiefs and such cowardice was no refuge for her.
“I know who you are,” she whispered. Her throat was too tight, too pained to force out any stronger sound.
He made no answer, only watched her. Slowly, the meaning of her words sank into him. She saw understanding form in his eyes, in the way his face moved and reshaped itself, passing from anxious, to grim, to sorrowful.
She expected him to turn away, to look toward the work of the war he meant to wage — for Gwiffert, for her, he said — but really for his kindred. He did not turn. His gaze barely flickered. “Who told you this?” he asked.
“It does not matter.” Was that itself a lie? Elen found was not sure.
“No.” Geraint sighed. “All that matters is that it was not myself.” Now he did hang his head. Now he rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Elen. I should have told you before we ever made our vows to each other. It was cowardly and I cannot undo that.”
Elen stared at him. He could not have understood her. She must be mistaken in her understanding of what he was saying now. He was thinking up his lie, delaying her with his apology. He could not be admitting to such a thing. He had lied. He must lie. He would lie. She was sure of it. With the blood that surged within him, there was no other way for him to be.
For a moment, Geraint watched the ebb and flow of work around them. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, or perhaps he was only satisfied that no one was paying the least attention to what he said, save for Elen.
“Growing up, I did not know Morgaine, except by name, and that much I only knew of once, from whispers between my mother and father that I was not supposed to hear. Three days after I first heard it, my mother was gone.”
Elen could not speak. Bewilderment turned cold flesh to stone. She had been ready only for denial and a smooth and earnest lie.
He stood there, his hands dangling loose at his sides as if they were dead and useless. “If I knew how it could be done, I would kill her.”
“Noble sentiment.” Elen had meant the words to be mocking, but they sounded fearful. Here came the lie. He could not deny the kinship, so he must deny the closeness of their bond.
“It is vengeance.”
Vengeance. The word rang in her. She had wanted so much revenge. She pined for it like she pined for her missing heartbeat. “What has she done to you?”
It was a long moment before Geraint could speak, and when he did, his voice trembled and cracked, as if he had never spoken such words before, and now they came hard. “My mother and my sister are dead because of her. And what she has done to my father …” He looked to her again and she saw such deep fury and despair in his eyes it seemed to her she must be seeing to the pit of his soul.
It is only show, it must be show, part of her insisted, and yet, and yet …
“I do not know all the tale,” he said, his words breathy, tremulous. “I do know that before I was born, Morgaine was imprisoned. My mother, Morgause, saw Morgaine her sister had grown mad with years and grief and rage. Morgause enlisted Merlin’s aid to set her sister apart from the world of men, where she might not cause harm. Guinevere too had a hand in it, though this was before she became the High Queen. Together they thought her fast bound, but there came a day she escaped their snare.
“I was a boy when that happened. I knew nothing then. I only knew my mother was leaving us. She called all us five to her; my brothers, my sister Tania, and myself. Her eyes were red with weeping. She spoke of duty … I … I do not remember what she said … she hugged us, urging us to take care of each other and our father until she returned.” He stopped. His eyes shone. The tears threatened to spill, but they did not.
“But she did not return.” His voice went flat and dead, as if the only way he could speak now was to hold himself apart from the words. “No one spoke of what had happened to her. I don’t believe anyone truly knew, not even my father. She had been sun and moon to him. He … he grew, alone and solitary. Sometimes he roamed our hall at night. Sometimes we heard him talking and waiting for answers.
“I spoke to you of his madness? This is where it began. He imagined slights. He raged for no reason. My sister especially felt the brunt of his meaningless rage. We thought it was because she was a woman, and the woman who meant the most to him was gone. We were wrong. Oh, God on High, we were so wrong.” What did he see now? He did not see her. He did not, in the manner of a liar, look to see how well she was believing. He saw the inside of his own heart, saw the memories and the feeling kept so closely there. “We all tried to shield her, even little Gareth, but it did no good, for at the same time we could none of us fully believe what our father was becoming.
“Then … Tania … there was a man … as I told you … Father threw her down …” He stopped and Elen knew this time he would not go on with the thought. He did not need to. He had told her that first nigh
t in this cursed land. Tania his sister was long dead at her own father’s hand.
“That was when Gawain left. He tried to take us younger ones with him, but Agravain would not permit it. They quarrelled badly, but Gawain still left. Once he was gone, Father only grew worse, and I began to fear sleep for the nightmares it brought. I too began to wander the hall.”
She thought she could see him as he was then, a thin and lonely boy in a hall of stone and dirt, directing his footsteps by the patches of moonlight that shone through the high and narrow windows, ready to brave the dark and all it held, because it could not be worse than what he held inside his soul.
“Then one night, not very long after Gawain had left, I woke, and I heard my father’s voice. He was in tears, pleading. I could not understand what he said. I was little more than a boy, and like a boy, I got up from my bed to look.
“In the great hall I saw my father on his knees. He was grasping the hem of a woman’s skirt, and that woman was laughing at him, mocking him. At first, I thought she was my mother. She looked like her, but when she turned and she looked at me, and saw that I saw her, her eyes were black. My mother had blue eyes.”
Like mine. But he did not say that. It was another thing there was no need to say.
“Since Gawain was gone, I told Agravain what I had seen. That took some doing.” For the first time since he had begun his tale, the ghost of a smile passed across his face. “Agravain too had grown cold, and I thought he would mock me. But he did not. Instead, he sat up with me the next night night, and he saw … he saw our father, but he could not see the woman. Despite that, he believed me. That morning, he told me to take Gareth and go to Gawain at Camelot. He said he would find a way to free our father.”