Under Camelot's Banner

by Sarah Zettel

  Laurel swept from the hall. They would follow, or they would not. It did not truly matter. What mattered now was to see how Morgaine chose to present herself, and how she returned Colan.

  Laurel had known for three days that the sorceress was on her way. Lynet had brought the news, although she had not been able to tell Laurel much more than that Morgaine had sailed from her home. Even Lynet had more sense than to spy too closely on Morgaine the Sleepless. Guild moved heavily in Laurel. For all that she had repeatedly warned her sister not to look too often into the mirror, she did not truly try to make Lynet stop. Laurel had her own powers. Her ways of knowing and warding came from the blood in her veins, but none of her arts were as strong those Lynet now had at her command. If they and Cambryn were to survive this time, they needed what Lynet could learn, and what she could do.

  Laurel entered the audience hall with her guards trailing behind. She did not permit herself any hesitation as she climbed the dais to the steward’s chair one step below the throne. She sat herself down in the place that had belonged to her father for as long as she had been alive. The strangers among her guard looked at each other uncertainly, but the men of Cambryn took their sign from her and mounted to their places beside her, flanking her with dignity and staring the strangers coldly down.

  A heartbeat after they were assembled, Peran entered to the hall. He had taken a moment to pull his bronze-clasped cloak onto his shoulders and it billowed out behind him as he strode to the dais, and put his foot on the lowest step.

  “No higher, Peran Treanhal,” snapped Laurel.

  A kind of smile formed on his scarred face, a warped and devilish grin. “Who are you to stop me, my lady?”

  Laurel felt the witchfires kindle within her. It was a hard light, akin to that which shimmered on the masts and the rails of ships on the sea that were blessed, or were doomed. “Do you say you are master here?”

  He cocked his head just a little. “Your ladyship has put her keeping in my hands.”

  What drives this? You’ve betrayed your mistress, or said you will. Why should her coming make you bold? “Yet I remain who I am, Master Peran, and I have my rank and my birth, and this place is yet mine. Will you take it from me here and now?”

  He was able to meet her eyes for a full dozen heartbeats before he relented. Whether that was from what he was able to see within her, or from the movement among the men of Cambryn as they stood straighter, and changed their grip on spear and pole-arm Laurel could not say and did not care. Peran removed his foot from the dais and stood to the side. For now that was all that mattered.

  You are not ready for such a contest yet. Neither am I.

  Laurel once again composed her face to the cool mask that she had worn continuously over the past few days. Inwardly, she had never felt more alone that she did at this moment. She told herself she was surrounded by the souls of those who loved her. She knew her men were loyal to her, for her father’s sake of if not yet for her own. She held the right to be where she was by the laws of God and man. Those truths, though, seemed fragile as moth’s wings as Hob and the other watchmen pushed open the doors and Morgaine entered the hall.

  The sorceress was dark of hair and eye, as Laurel had always been told. She dressed simply in a cloak and dress of rich blue, with silver for her girdle and the circlet that held the linen veil over her braided hair. She comported herself with absolute certainty of place and power as she strode up the center of the audience hall. In her train came two women, dark like their mistress, and like her dressed in rich blue. Behind them, as Hob had reported, marched eight men. These all wore caps and corselets of leather, and all went unarmed at this time, making a peaceful entry into the hall.

  The last of them dragged Colan Carnbrea.

  Colan’s raw hands were bound behind him and rough hemp rope hobbled his legs. His guard thought enough of his rank that they allowed him to find his feet so he could stand as the whole procession came to a halt at the foot of the dais.

  Rage filled Laurel at the sight of him. She had thought herself ready for this moment, but this farce of him being hauled before their father’s seat in the semblance of a captive burned through her. It was all she could do to keep from ordering the nearest man to impale her faithless brother on his spear so she could watch him die in this place where he had killed their father.

  What would you say to that Morgaine? she wondered, almost idly toward the sorceress’s who now made her curtsey at the foot of the dais. If I removed one of your spy and best barter coin?

  But what Laurel said was, “Welcome to Cambryn, Lady Morgaine, an’ you come in peace.”

  Morgaine straightened. “I thank you for your welcome, Lady Laurel.” Her voice was low and rich, with a lilt to it that Laurel could not place. “I do come in peace, and to return what is rightfully yours.” She motioned to her men. The two closest to Colan grabbed his arms roughly, half-pushing, half-carrying him forward. When they reached the foot of the dais, they shoved him to his knees so hard that he bit his lip to keep from crying aloud.

  Laurel felt one muscle in her cheek twitch.

  “He came to me begging shelter,” said Morgaine. “But the truth of his deeds was soon discovered. I will not shelter one who so betrays his own blood.”

  Laurel looked for a moment into Morgaine’s black eyes. In faith, Morgaine, I don’t believe you would. That understanding surprised her, but she kept it deep within herself. Instead she looked down at Colan. He hunched on the stones at her feet with his head bowed. She could see nothing of his face. Her jaw clenched and she held her peace until she was certain she could trust her voice to remain steady.

  “Is there anything you would say to me, Colan No Man’s Son?” Laurel inquired.

  He raised his head and met her eyes, and she saw that there was. There was a wellspring of words within him. Either his own wisdom or Morgaine’s council kept him silent, however, and he bowed his head once more.

  “You may claim the bounty for returning him to us,” said Laurel to Morgaine.

  “I will take no such price,” replied the sorceress, gravely, as Laurel had been next to certain she would. “I regard it as enough that the thing is done.”

  “Then please accept my thanks for the return of this outlaw,” Laurel replied. Though if you truly meant what you say why you bothered to return him rather than kill him is past understanding. “I invite you and yours reside with us this night before you must begin your journey home.”

  Regally, Morgaine inclined her head. “Thank you, my lady. I do accept.”

  That done, Laurel made herself look once more at Colan. He had not made any move. Seeing him crouch there turned her stomach. “Take him to his chamber,” said Laurel to Hob and Joss. “Let him be loosed, but make sure a good guard is kept. Let no one save myself speak with him under any pretext. Sentence will be passed in good time.” Lest you doubt that, Colan.

  If Colan had thought to find any gentleness upon his return, he was disappointed. Hob and Joss hauled him upright and dragged him bodily from the hall before he could get his feet under him. He would, no doubt, find himself in possession of a few new bruises before his fetters were cut, but Laurel could not find it in her to order more care to be taken. She had far greater concerns. She turned her attention back to the patient Morgaine.

  “I believe, Lady, you know Peran Treanhal.” Laurel turned toward the chieftain who had waited still and silent throughout.

  Morgaine looked toward Peran as if noticing him for the first time. She inclined her head to him, as he did to her.

  “The Treanhal have been good friends of my people,” said Morgaine. “I am pleased to see their chief made welcome here.”

  “I am come on a matter of law, Lady Morgaine,” rasped Peran. “Alas the treachery of the outlaw delayed that justice.”

  Morgaine looked concerned, but not overly so. After all, what could the business of such a minor ally matter to you? “I am certain the lady will rule soundly in her father’s name. I
was deeply sorrowed to hear of your father’s death, Lady Laurel,” Morgaine was saying. “Will you, of your courtesy, permit me to visit his grave?”

  “Of course.” Let us keep on with this mummery.

  “After which I trust you will be pleased to rest and take what poor refreshment we here may offer you.”

  “Again, I thank you, Lady Laurel.”

  “If you will walk with me?”

  So, Laurel walked the length of the hall beside the sorceress with Morgaine’s two silent ladies following behind. Laurel made no remark or attempt at conversation. The fewer words that passed between them, the fewer chances her rage would betray her. The whole way through the hall and down the corridors, she concentrated on keeping her distance as best she could, to not permit even the hem of her garment brush Morgaine’s.

  Outside, the day was chill and the wind brisk. The clouds promised more rain and soon, perhaps another spring storm. Not all the storms to come are in our hall, thought Laurel to herself as she led Morgaine out to their father’s cairn. The first stones for a proper tomb had yet to be brought. She would send men out for them as soon as this … time … had drawn to a close. Until then, Lord Kenan lay like one of the ancients, in his grave beneath a great pile of undressed grey rock.

  While her ladies hung back, Morgaine approached the cairn with a reverent demeanor. She stood beside it for awhile, with her head bowed. Laurel tried to compose herself to prayer, to banish thoughts of her brother pacing his old chamber with the guards outside waiting for an excuse to exact punishment from him, of her sister tearing herself apart to keep watch over their home, of herself standing hostage to the plots and plans swirling all around her. But prayer would not come, only more anger and the sick, sad helplessness that had dogged her since she had watched Lynet ride away.

  While Laurel sank beneath her own thoughts, Morgaine reached out and touched her hand as if in friendly sympathy. Startled off her guard, Laurel looked into the other woman’s eyes.

  “It is a bitter thing to lose a father to violence,” she said. “I know it well, and I am sorry for you.”

  Unexpectedly, a wave of warmth rushed over Laurel. It was such a relief to hear a sympathetic voice. She was surrounded by her folk, but at the same time she was separate and alone. All her family was gone from her, even her beloved sister. What could be worse than that? Although she might be long accustomed to keeping her own council, it had been so hard these past days. She was not even mistress in her own home. She had not realized until this moment how desperately she had longed for a friendly voice, to unburden herself to someone to whom she was not mistress but only friend.

  As these thoughts passed through her, she felt again the tang of salt on her lips, brought by the hard winds from the ocean that whipped at her cloak and teased her hair.

  But I am not alone. Not here, not now. She kept her gaze on Morgaine’s without wavering. I will never be so alone that I need turn to you, not like this, Morgaine. Have you not learned that yet from your dealings with our family?

  Although Laurel spoke not a word of this aloud, Morgaine nodded once, as if she understood, and what was more, that she approved. Laurel had the sudden feeling she had passed some sort of test, and a fresh spasm of anger shivered through her.

  “I have a word I would say to you, Lady, while we have this time to ourselves.”

  “What word, Lady?”

  “Tintagel.”

  Laurel did her best not to stare, but some hint of surprise surely showed in her face, for Morgaine smiled, just a little. “It is a secret to no one that I wish to bring down the murderer and pretender who calls himself King Arthur. Cambryn and Tintagel could be bulwarks in the war that is to come. When it is done, and I and mine have the victory, who better could I ask to hold that great fortress between land and sea? I know your birth and blood well, Laurel Carnbrea, Laurel verch Morwenna. That place is naturally yours. I would give it to you.”

  Laurel’s tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. The sea wind blew hard, mingling the scents of rain and salt. She had been to Tintagel, of course. She had stood at the base of its cliffs, revelling in the rush and the wildness of the waves, hearing the song that was the other part of her own self, the part that must remain unknown, because she had promised her mother that she would protect Cambryn.

  Tintagel. Could she live there? Be mistress of the land’s end, and bring the two halves of herself together? Go every day and take the sea by the hand?

  She looked at the woman before her with sudden, sharp hatred. How dare you bring me this temptation! Again, Morgaine only smiled.

  “Shall we go, my lady?” Laurel inquired frostily.

  “Oh yes,” replied Morgaine. “We have a long way to go yet, you and I.”

  To this, Laurel could find no answer at all.

  Laurel presided over the evening meal as best as she was able, seeing to it that her guards and her unwelcome guests were all fed as luxuriously as their remaining stores allowed. She knew from Jorey’s worried looks that the extra strain was beginning to tell on the cellars. Provision for the castell would have to be seen to before many more days had passed. The idea that she would have to seek permission from Mesek and Peran for this basic duty galled her.

  Morgaine, for her part, pretended to a distant acquaintance with Peran, and none at all with Mesek, who had reappeared just as the board was being laid. He did not say where he had been, and Laurel did not ask. She was in no humor to accept one more lie. Meg would be able to find out for her, and if Meg could not, Lynet would. Laurel tried to be grateful that all remained civil and polite, and nearly silent. The rain had begun outside, and its drumming could be heard clearly throughout the meal, there was so little noise in the hall.

  By the time Laurel saw her guests settled for the night, a profound weariness dragged at every limb. She wanted nothing more than to seek her own bed, but there was one thing she must do before then. She sent Meg and the girls ahead to prepare her bed, swearing she would be with them shortly. Then, with her guards in tow and little Tag to carry the rushlight, she reluctantly climbed the stairs. She travelled the long corridor beneath the roof with the storm’s voice battering at her ears and its drafts curling around her ankles, until she came at last to her brother’s door.

  “I will speak with him,” she said to the guard who had been duly posted.

  The young man — Tremere’s oldest son, what was his name? — looked as if he wanted question the wisdom of this, but he remembered himself in time, closed his mouth and stepped aside. Laurel pushed the door open.

  A blast of frigid, wet air slapped against her face. Colan stood at his narrow window, the shutters thrown wide to admit the storm’s winds. The hiss of wind and rain hid the sound of her entry, and he did not turn.

  A sister’s exasperation that was older and deeper than her rage snapped into place. “Are you looking to die of cold?”

  Colan turned his head. The badly flickering firelight left dark hollows on his cheeks. His face was covered with a beard of at least a week’s growth, which made him look all the more haggard.

  “You do not fear to be alone with me?” he asked. His voice was harsh and lower than it had been when he left.

  Laurel sighed. Another game. More sparring with words. “Should I?”

  “You have seen me do murder,” he answered simply. Simply. Nothing was simple now, nor would it ever be again, not even when his head had left his shoulders.

  She spread her hands. “What would my murder gain you?”

  He shrugged. “Why should I scruple at one more death?”

  Laurel hung her head. Colan was soaked to the skin by now. His dirty tunic clung to his chest and he was shivering. He courted illness by his careless behavior, and somehow this annoyed her more sharply than the fact that she must soon sentence him to die. “You did not agree to be dragged back here to keep me guessing about whether you purpose my death as well as our father’s.”

  “You believe I agreed to be bound an
d thrown at your feet?” He spoke the words slowly, with every appearance of incredulity.

  “I had thought to feign ignorance,” she said almost to herself. “To let your mistress play out whatever game she has in mind, but now that I see you again, I find I cannot do it.” She folded her arms against the chill wind blowing freely through the chamber. “This is a failure of cunning which seems to run strong in our family.”

  “Sister I assure you, if I had my way, I would be a hundred miles from this place.”

  “I am sure of that.” She was cold, and growing damp, the wildness of the wind streaming in cut to her heart, breaking patience and thought. “But you chose to deal with the wrong mistress. If I knew she could be this demanding of her servants, surely you must have known it as well.”

  “Sister …” Colan held out his hand, suddenly pleading. He was a pathetic figure, rain-drenched and clearly starved. There was far too much of the boy she had helped raise in his eyes.

  “Stop it, Colan,” snapped Laurel. “Do me the courtesy of believing I can see through this much of the game.”

  He dropped his hand, and the rain on his visage took on the look of tears. “Sister, I swear before God Most High, that you need not fear that I plan anymore with her,” he whispered.

  Despair surged around him like the storm winds he had invited in, and, for just a moment, Laurel’s certainty wavered. “Why is that?”

  “I failed her.” The words caught in his throat and seemed to rob him of his strength. He sat heavily on the low stool beside the fire. “When she says you may do as you will with me, she means just that,” he said to the sputtering flames, as if he already saw his fate there.

  How could the sight of his defeat still reach her? With all he had done, how could her heart still reach to him now?

  Because I failed him. Had I been true to our mother’s last charge, he would not have become this thing. “How is it you failed Morgaine?”

  “Our sister reached Camelot.”

  So. Heart and understanding snapped back into place at once. “Should you not say the morverch failed her?” she inquired acidly.