The King bowed his head. “I know it.”
“During that time I have done errantry and questing on her behalf.”
“I know it.”
“In the winter of last year the lady Queen wished to learn more of a certain knight of the Table of whom she suspected—nothing, at that point. Only a thing she had from Sir Gareth made her curious to know his loyalties better. She asked me to follow him to the tournament at Carlisle, and to mark all his actions going and returning. This man left the tournament after two days, and travelled south into the waste. I was forced to vanish likewise.”
Blanchefleur saw Perceval, who had been standing apart with drooping head, stiffen and lift his eyes to Lancelot.
“I hunted my quarry to the citadel of the man known today as Breunis Saunce-Pité, where I saw him received with all show of friendly courtesy. In the following days, the two of them viewed new-built houses and mills in the valley, and had a foundation laid out for another. Such seemed to me at the time a good argument of their well meaning. And so when I returned to Camelot I reported to the Queen what I had found, on an evening in the garden that Sir Perceval and Sir Agravain may, I think, remember.”
Perceval said: “I remember it, sir. The lady Queen was there, with attendants, and I might give you their names.”
“Then the reputation of Saunce-Pité grew,” said Lancelot. “And we now hear that he is the same Sir Breunis. This puts a different complexion upon his fellowship with a knight of the Table.”
“It was,” the Queen added, “the reason I warned you against receiving this knight into your councils, my lord.”
The King looked at her in sharp surprise. “What, are you speaking of Sir Mordred?”
She returned his look steadily. Sir Lancelot said: “Yes. And I believe that he has stirred up this strife and war to remove your Queen, a threat to his rising power.”
The King turned to the pale young man at his side. “What do you say, Sir Mordred, to these things?”
“They are a convenient excuse, surely.”
Perceval said: “It is true! He knows Breunis Saunce-Pité. Gareth and I saw them travelling together last winter.”
“I grant it,” Mordred said. “I knew Sir Breunis, and sought to dissuade him from his evil ways, until his obdurance made it wiser for me to avoid his company. But tell me, I pray, how the fact of my acquaintance with Saunce-Pité makes me a conspirator against the Queen’s grace?”
“It gives you reason to so conspire,” Sir Lancelot insisted. “You knew the Queen distrusted you. You knew she threw her opinion always against yours with the King.”
“It is the prerogative of ladies,” said Mordred with a smile, “to take dislikes to those who would rather be their friends than their enemies.”
A new voice called from a young man bearing the double-headed eagle of Orkney. “Why not ask her what grudge it is that she carries against my cousin?”
“Good cousin Agravain, I think not—”
But Agravain, with a hot rush that reminded Blanchefleur of his brother, spoke on: “Ask her! For years the whisperers have hinted that you are the King’s son, Mordred, and she believes them and is full of malice toward you.”
In the silence that followed this, Blanchefleur reached out and grasped Perceval’s arm. “Who is Mordred’s mother?” she asked in the ghost of a whisper, so that she thought he might not hear her. But he turned and mouthed the very name she had been dreading.
“Morgan.”
Her fingers closed a little harder on Perceval’s arms and she stared at the King with dismay.
But others in the pavilion seemed less aghast. One knight said, in a rather bored voice, “For shame, Agravain! Not here.”
The King frowned. “Your rash suspicions have already flung this realm into war, nephew. Learn to bridle your tongue and not repeat idle tales.”
Agravain twisted his mouth sulkily and retreated. Mordred said to the King, “My lord, let not such things turn your favour from true and loyal men.”
“Rest assured they shall not,” said the King, but he looked thoughtfully from nephew to Queen. Then his eyes fell on Blanchefleur and he said, “Step forward, daughter. Mordred, salute the Lady of the Grail, the Heir and coming queen of Logres. Will you serve her, honour her, and uphold her as you have her father?”
“Lady, I swear that I will.”
Under the King’s gaze Mordred bent over her hand to kiss it. Blanchefleur, still shaken by Agravain’s blurted words, could not restrain a shudder as his lips brushed her hand. At that he glanced up; she looked into piercing grey eyes and knew him.
She could not have said what it was that triggered her memory. Whether by a trick of stagecraft, or by some art of his mother’s, he was different. Bearded, mail-shirted, grey-cloaked, carrying himself upright and honestly as he had throughout the whole meeting, she could have been in his company for months without guessing his secret. Perceval, after all, had known him and not recognised him. How had he given himself away? Was it that moment of calculation when he felt her tremble and looked up to assess her mood? Or was it something else, the unnatural perception which had been hers since Carbonek, the ability to see and sum up a man’s character with the blink of an eye?
Be that as it may, there was now no doubt of the thing.
Her voice, when she spoke, was strained and faint.
“Simon Corbin?”
33
The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand—
Oh, who shall understand but you; yea, who shall understand?
Chesterton
THE LOOK THAT FLASHED INTO SIMON Corbin’s eyes when she said his name frightened her, for it was the sudden desperate fighting instinct of a cornered animal. His grip on her hand hardened just as Blanchefleur, seeing that ugly impulse, jerked away from him so that his white-knuckle fist grasped air. She spoke almost without thought, so that only once the words hung in the air did she perceive their full meaning:
“You’re Morgan’s secret master! You ordered her to kill me.”
Already he had the upper hand of himself, and faced her with smooth puzzlement. “Lady, surely you are mistaken.”
But now she had seen him with his mask down. Perceval stood by her side, and with a glance at his face she knew he too had recognised the man Corbin.
“Impossible. Do you expect me to forget the face of the man who was for six months my friend and for one evening my suitor?” One realisation collided with another. “Merciful heaven! Everything you said was meant to keep me away from Logres!”
Perceval sounded almost awe-struck. “It’s true.”
But Mordred gathered credibility around him like a cloak. He raised a plaintive eyebrow at the dumbfounded King, and said, “Your suitor? My dear cousin!”
“You deny it?”
“What else can I do?” Mordred shook his head. “You mistake me for some other knight.”
God help her, he was almost convincing. Even Perceval glanced at her with sudden doubt in his eyes. But there was a bittersweet joy jangling in her bones because the long-hidden foe was not Arthur of Britain. Blanchefleur stood her ground. “I have already said it is impossible. And if that were not enough, there is the word of your mother. Morgan showed to me the master who sent her to kill me. Her own son. You.”
There was a little stir, a little drawing of breath and wrinkling of brows in the pavilion. She felt some of Mordred’s credibility falling away. Yet, if he heard now for the first time that his mother had betrayed him, Mordred hid it with delicate irony. “My mother is famed for her verity. When have you spoken with her?”
“Three times in the city of Sarras.”
“In the city of Sarras?” Mordred laughed. “In the city of fancies and fables. Aye, and last night in a dream I spoke to the spirit of Achilles, and he told me I would be King of Britain.”
His laughter fell dead in the pavilion’s silence. Blanchefleur smiled, but it felt more like baring her teeth. “The spirits
you converse with, deceiver and sorcerer, may indeed tell you what you wish to hear. But I, I am the last of the Grail Maidens of Carbonek Castle, and I walked the streets of Sarras. My blood yet stains those stones. I spoke to Morgan herself.”
Mordred swung as if to appeal to the King. Arthur straightened in his chair and said, “Be assured the matter will be thoroughly sifted.”
And his voice had the menace of a threat in it.
“Am I free to go?” Mordred asked. He did not look at her, but Blanchefleur felt malice beating oven-hot on her brow. She moved a little closer to Perceval.
“I counsel you,” said the King, “to keep the company of the lord marshal for the present.”
“Then let the lord marshal be advised that I go to make my dispositions,” said Mordred, and wheeled and went out the door of the pavilion. As he went, Blanchefleur caught the gleam of his eye and nearly flinched.
“Bedivere,” said the King, and one of the knights by his seat started after Mordred, who was already ten steps ahead, walking down the aisle between the King’s men and Lancelot’s. It was smoothly done, in an instant, before any of them were fully aware. As he came to the end of the line, Mordred broke into a run with a shout. A horse, saddled and bridled, came trotting at his call. Mordred flung his arms around the beast’s neck, vaulted into the saddle, and quickened to a gallop.
Bedivere shouted, “After him! After him! Treachery! To horse!” But it was Perceval, still armed and within easy reach of Glaucus, who first took the trail.
BLANCHEFLEUR SPENT THAT NIGHT UNDER CANVAS. She lay awake for hours, straining her ears, before she felt rather than heard the slow thud of hooves and knew that Sir Perceval had returned. She rose, stepping carefully between the other sleepers in the tent, and stole out into the frosty moonlight.
“Perceval,” she called.
He reined in and turned. Blanchefleur ran up to his knee, lifted his right hand from the rein, and kissed the glove. “Where is he? Did you lose him?”
“Yes, every trace.” He slipped his hand out of the gauntlet. “You should not be out in the cold. We will speak tomorrow—” and with the sliding of his fingers through her hair he was gone.
The royal camp began to break up at dawn. By an hour before Terce, when a page was sent to bring Blanchefleur to breakfast, many of the pavilions had already vanished and Blanchefleur picked her way to the King’s tent through mud stirred up by the passage of horses and oxen.
After Mordred’s escape the evening before, Blanchefleur had given the King the summary of her acquaintance with Simon Corbin and her encounters with the Queen of Gore. Unfinished business of battle had prevented her telling more. The King had worked late on a grim matter, and when she slipped into his pavilion it was faintly jarring to see him sitting next to the Queen at a little table set for four, talking as if never a shadow had fallen between them.
Arthur was saying, “—told him he could have her, of course. He has proven himself in long service, and is the heir to a kingdom.”
Blanchefleur hesitated in the doorway, but the Queen saw her at once and gestured silence to the King. “Come and sit, Blanchefleur,” she called.
For the first time, Blanchefleur thought there was warmth in her voice. She slid into one of the empty chairs rather shyly. The King twinkled at her.
“What d’you make of this,” he said. “Our lost daughter is restored to us not a day, and already I am asked for her hand.”
For a moment Blanchefleur assumed he meant Perceval. Then, all in a flash, she remembered the words Simon Corbin had spoken, that night at the party, of the diplomatic marriage her parents no doubt intended for her. Why, could Perceval have had the time to ask for her hand between last night and this morning?
She swallowed. What heir to a kingdom had been told he could have her?
“He is well-known to you,” the King reassured her, seeing the look on her face. Then a shadow darkened the entrance of the tent, and he turned to greet the fourth addition to their table.
The young knight came in, bending his head to avoid the low-slung doorway, and bowed to the King. “My lord, my lady.” Then an affectionate gleam at Blanchefleur. “My love.”
“Perceval!” And she remembered with a breathless laugh that King Pelles had made him his heir.
“Is he not to your liking?” asked the King.
“Oh! Yes! Yes, he is!”
“For he told me he has gained your consent. If he is lying, I’ll have him scourged from Logres.”
Blanchefleur opened her mouth to protest, but then saw the twinkle in his eye and had to laugh.
Sir Perceval sat down at the table next to her. “Why in such a pother, love?”
“It was—” Realisation stole her breath. “It was Mordred. It was something Mordred said to me, long ago.” Even after all this time. Even knowing him to be a villain, his words still poisoned her thoughts.
The King tore a piece of venison from the bone, gave it to the hound Cavall, and said: “Ah yes, Mordred! His flight proves his villainy and argues in favour of Lancelot’s story, that he has worked to Guinevere’s undoing in all this strife.” He glanced at the Queen and said, very gently, “That somewhat undoes the case against you, lady wife.”
Guinevere bent her head in silent acknowledgement of his words. There was a wistful curve in the corner of her mouth, a sweetness of hope in the air. But if she was glad to be in the King’s favour again, why did she duck her head as if to hide her face?
Perceval took a mouthful of wine and said, “Mordred’s treachery explains much. For one thing, his alliance with that ruffian Saunce-Pité.”
Blanchefleur nodded. “It also explains why, in Gloucestershire, Mr Corbin was able to guess all my secrets. Although if he wished to kill me, why did he ask me to marry him?”
Perceval said, “He saw the opportunity. Easy enough to deal with you as he liked once he had you. When you refused him, he sent the giant.” He shook his head. “I never guessed Mordred was the man from Gloucestershire. In Logres he never spoke to me for more than five minutes together, never in clear daylight, never by his act but by mine. I told myself it was my imagination that he avoided me.”
“You said he was Morgan’s master,” said the King to Blanchefleur. “Not her underling?”
“No.” She traced the grain of the wooden table. “Morgan told me again and again that she was being used by someone. At first I did not believe her. But she acted so desperately… She gave me a vision to explain who that master was. I did not understand it at first.”
She swallowed and picked her words carefully. “When I saw that Simon Corbin was Mordred, and that Mordred was Morgan’s son, the vision made sense. The vision showed Morgan with a baby. Her son.”
She looked at the King appealingly, not willing also to bring up the slander insinuated by Morgan and declared outright by Agravain—but wishing and hoping that he might tell her what to think of it.
The King either overlooked or did not see the question in her eyes. “Well?” he prompted.
“If Mordred was Simon Corbin, the man who dogged my tracks and tried to keep me in Gloucestershire,” Blanchefleur argued, “then he must be Morgan’s partner in crime, or more likely, given the purpose of the vision, her master.”
“Certainly, he did not deny it.”
The Queen said, “Rather, he fled, declaring himself without a doubt our enemy and sacrificing his strong position. This troubles me. He must have planned for such a possibility—he must have had his horse waiting. What will he do next?”
Perceval said, “We have men out looking for him. I have sent Caradoc north to watch the road to the land of the Silver Dragon. If Mordred travels that way, Caradoc will send word.”
The King nodded. “Unless we take him soon, before he reaches safety.” He wiped his moustache and stood up. “The sooner we return to Camelot, the better. I am uneasy away from my citadel, like a naked man in the snow.” But he kissed his wife, called to his hound, and went out of the tent
with none of the fatigue that had lain on his shoulders the previous day.
THAT AFTERNOON BLANCHEFLEUR CAME TO CAMELOT, riding with the King’s vanguard. They took the few hours’ ride from Joyeuse Gard quickly, not delayed by oxcart or siege engines. The ride was a pleasant one; winter sun flooded the floor of the leafless forest with light and warmth, so that beneath that golden eye it was easy to hope that all their troubles were over. And Camelot, which she had dimly sensed looming in the midnight sky a few nights ago, stood brightly unveiled now, its chaotic lines softened by the grey tracery of trees.
Camelot sprawled. Part of it had been built by the Romans, parts by other kings of other peoples, and now it was a rambling labyrinthine pile crowning the hill, sprouting turrets and stairways, little roads and tucked-away terraces, a haphazard heap of house, garden, city, and castle.
Blanchefleur and Branwen were given a roomy chamber on the south, where the sun sloped through big arched windows set with glass. From these the wall dropped sheer away into the castle garden, which at this time of the year was dead and bare. But Blanchefleur threw open the casement and called in delight, “Branwen, can you imagine how beautiful this would have been in summer? It must have looked like Sarras. What a shame it’s all dead now!”
“It will come again.” Branwen’s voice was muffled. “Look what I found behind the tapestry! A whole room for storing clothes!”
Blanchefleur pulled the casement to and followed the sound of Branwen’s voice to a little shelf-lined room. “For clothes? It looks more like a pantry to me.”
“Well,” Branwen giggled, “to be sure, let us keep some pork pies in here for when we are hungry in the night.”
Blanchefleur shook her head. “No, you stick to nuts and plums. I don’t care for pork-pie-scented dreams. I shall just have to get more clothes.” She looked around the store-room. “Many more clothes.”
Branwen laughed and darted out. When she came back, a saddle-bag hung from each hand. “Here are my things.” She laid one bag on one shelf. “And here are your things.” She opened the other, shook out Blanchefleur’s spare tunic, and folded it neatly onto another shelf. The next thing she took from the bag was the little black knife in its leathern sheath.
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