Under Camelot's Banner

by Sarah Zettel

  When her vision cleared, she found herself standing in Colan’s chamber. The fire and the rushlights had both been doused. The room was utterly black. With her shadow sight, she could make out Colan’s hunched form crouched on the low sill of his narrow window.

  She thought he meant to jump, to kill himself and end his blood-stained life. She felt the guilt in him. It rolled off him like waves of ice water, cutting through the shadow of herself, threatening to wash her away with its strength. It seemed as if he must be wading through it up to his neck. But no. Whether she drifted forward or pulled him close, she neared him, and she found she could feel beneath the guilt, discern its foundations, understand them.

  He was going to kill Laurel. He was going to scale the old, time-pitted wall and creep across the roof slates. He could do it. He had done it in secret as a boy. He had waited here quiet and meek, waiting for the men to become bored and complacent, waiting for Laurel to become disgusted or distracted so that she did not visit him anymore.

  Lynet knew all this, as surely as she knew he had killed their father. He was going to kill Laurel and offer up the death to Morgaine, a sacrifice, to show her he was still loyal, that he was still useful.

  That he was still hers and that she could not abandon one of her own.

  “No,” whispered Lynet. “No!”

  But he could not hear her, she could not reach him. She was less than shadow now, she was nothing more than witness.

  Without even looking to Ryol, Lynet gathered her strength, and reached out for his. It flowed into her like honey, thick and warming. She focused thought and will, and forced herself into being. Pain filled her with its unbearable fire, and she stood and she held. When her eyes could see again, she turned them on Colan and reached with the shadow that was herself. She caught up her own pain, and that cold, rolling guilt rushing from him, scooping it up like ocean water into an ewer, and with all her strength, she flung it back at Colan where he crouched like some great insect, waiting for his time.

  His fingers gripped the stones hard for a moment and he toppled backward, barely catching himself in time to keep from sprawling on the floor. He turned, looking about the room, his face pale as death. His hands shook and he wrapped his arms to himself, doubling over as if suddenly sick. He did not move. Lynet let herself drift a little closer, still solid, still strong, wading through her brother’s guilt, collecting it as she went.

  “Father?” Colan whispered.

  That single word told her what she must do, what she could do. She was an ethereal shape, and shapes could shift. She called up memory of her father, whom she was said to be so like, the height and breadth and strength of him, the set of his shoulders, the carved hollows of his cheeks, the hard, square hands of a warrior. And the blood, the blood she had last seen pouring from his torn belly.

  All this she made herself, and in a final wrenching act of will, all this she showed to Colan. She knew at once he saw and saw clearly, for he screamed in utter horror, throwing up his hands to ward off the bloody ghost before him.

  The door burst open, and Lynet let herself vanish, let the pain and the tide of her brother’s guilt wash her away, back into the thinnest breath of shadow, back to passive witness as the men of Colan’s guard ran into the room to find him crouched on his floor, his head in his hands, trembling and weeping like a babe.

  Lynet looked down on her work and felt the tears stinging her eyes. “Take me to Laurel,” she told Ryol.

  Gareth sat beside Laurel’s body. She lay on the ground, her eyes closed, as peacefully as if she was asleep, save that her flesh was as cold and as pale as death. Only her fingers around her mirror kept their life. The mirror was cold as ice, but her hands were warm, almost fiery. He drew her cloak over her. She did not breathe. Did not stir. He sat back, biting his lip, wondering what he should do.

  Watch. Wait. Do as you promised.

  The night turned slowly over them. The sounds of the camp gave way to snores and mutters. Cold crept into Gareth. He stood, stretching creaking joints, and paced to the near edge of the woods, as much to try to get some warmth into him as to make sure no patrol or wanderer approached.

  Gareth froze. Out in the dark, he saw movement; a black shadow by the soft grey outline of the queen’s pavilion. He stared hard. It was Sir Lancelot. Even in the uncertain light of the waxing moon, Gareth knew his knight’s form. Sir Lancelot stood beside the pavilion door, leaning in, just a little. Was he saying something? Gareth couldn’t hear. He glanced down at Lynet lying cold and still. He could not leave her, but what if something was wrong? What if the camp would be roused in another moment?

  The flap of canvas folded back from the pavilion’s entrance and a woman’s silhouette emerged.

  It was Queen Guinevere.

  Sir Lancelot bowed low. He was speaking. Over the breeze in the trees, Gareth could hear the soft rise and fall of the knight’s voice, although he could not make out a single word. The queen answered him, but she was too far away for him to make out any tone or timbre in her voice. Sir Lancelot took one step closer, and the queen drew herself up tall. Whatever she said then, it caused the knight to step backwards and bow again. The queen let the canvas fall between them. Sir Lancelot stood there a moment, and then strode away, jauntily, as if well satisfied with himself.

  Gareth just stared. The queen? Queen Guinevere, wife to Arthur the High King. The queen and Sir Lancelot!

  A state close to panic seized hold of his guts and twisted. No. No. It is not possible. I did not see it. It could not be. She would not. Not even with Sir Lancelot. She would never betray King Arthur. She would not!

  Memory crashed against him. He was a boy again, his head tilting up to look at Geraint who looked as sick as he felt. His hands shook, his voice quavered and tears spilled down his cold cheeks.

  “Why Geraint?” he was asking, his voice high and plaintive with a child’s pain and confusion. “Why did he kill her?”

  “There was a man, Gareth,” answered Geraint, as gently as he could. “She was with child. She would not name the father. Father grew angry …” Geraint said no more. There was no need. They all knew father’s anger, father’s vicious, sudden, reasonless anger.

  Gareth threw himself into his brother’s embrace trying to crawl inside Geraint’s very skin, to hide from that wrath, the confusion and betrayal, to hide from the truth that his sister was dishonored, betrayed and betrayer, and that his father had killed her for it. Killed her, killed her, killed her …

  Movement brought Gareth back to himself and he saw the tent open once more, and the queen emerge again, looking this way and that. His first broken and furious thought sneered she must be looking for Sir Lancelot. Then he realized he was wrong.

  She was looking for Lynet.

  God’s Legs.

  Gareth crouched beside Lynet where she lay, corpse cold, and he shook her. “Lynet! Lynet!” he called, softly, urgently. He looked over his shoulder. The queen still stood before the pavilion, her hands on her hips. He knew by her stance that worry and anger were at war within her.

  “Lynet!”

  Slowly, slowly, Lynet began to stir. Her eyes blinked heavily and a low, wordless groan escaped her.

  “Lynet, wake up!” He grasped her arms and pulled her into a sitting position. Her face turned toward him but she did not see him. He shook her hard. “Lynet, Lynet Carnbrea, wake up! See me!”

  Animation returned painfully to her face and her gaze, and she thrust her hands between his arms to break his hold. He let go even though she swayed where she sat. He looked back at the queen. They had but moments.

  “No!” she moaned. “No, I mustn’t leave, not yet …”

  “Lynet, hear me!” bawled Gareth in her ear. “The queen is looking for you! Lynet! Queen Guinevere is awake and she’s looking for you!”

  Those words brought Lynet all the way back. She grabbed hold of his arm and used it to lever herself to her feet. He was not sure she’d be able to walk, but she squeezed his hand
with some semblance of strength, and staggered forward, shoving her mirror into its pouch. Gareth stayed where he was, watching her, his breath coming fast and ragged.

  By the time she emerged fully into the moonlight, Lynet was walking normally. He hung back in the trees, watching her move forward with only her usual slight limping.

  “My queen!” she exclaimed as she began to kneel.

  Queen Guinevere stopped her with a gesture. “God of Mercy, Lynet, where were you! I was thinking you’d wandered off …”

  “Forgive me, Majesty. I was only relieving myself.” Lynet waved vaguely towards the woods. “I … I do not like to do so too close to the pavilion …”

  The queen was still for a moment. Because he could not see her face, Gareth could not tell whether she believed Lynet’s story or not.

  “Well, come inside before you wake anyone else.” The queen held the pavilion door open. Lynet bowed her head meekly and vanished into its shadows.

  For a moment the queen stood there alone, looking back toward the main camp, back along the way Sir Lancelot had walked. Then, she too retreated inside the pavilion, and all was quiet again.

  Gareth put a hand on the trunk of the nearest tree. His breathing would not calm, but instead grew louder, more painful against his throat gone dry and raw. Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot had come to the queen in darkness, and she had answered him. They had stood there together, so close, spoken so softly.

  Gareth pushed his knuckles into his eyes so hard the pain ran back through his skull. Pluck them out, he thought ridiculously. Before you have to see more.

  He swung around, striding away from the camp to he knew not where. Anywhere. Anywhere but back to where Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot were.

  The queen.

  Not the queen.

  Never the queen.

  The queen.

  His foot skidded on the grass, and the jolt made him look outward again. He stood on the sloping hillside. Below him spread the vast, black expanse of the moorland. He threw himself down on the sodden grass, not caring for either damp or cold, and drew his knees up to his chest like a boy. Like a boy who learned far too young that woman’s betrayal meant death and madness and vanishing.

  There was a mist rising out there, filling the bowl of the moor valley, as thick and uneasy as the thoughts filling him.

  He had not seen it. It was something else. Something different. Some problem or potential danger that Sir Lancelot had to alert the queen to.

  But the camp is quiet.

  The queen would not betray her king, their king. She loved him.

  She was the one to answer Sir Lancelot, not a serving maid …

  No. No. It had not happened. He was wrong.

  Gareth sat hunched there on the hillside, his arms wrapped around himself and his thoughts barging back and forth so hard and sudden he felt his skull must split open from the force of them. The mists crawled up the hillside. There’d be a real fog soon, all around the camp. He should get up. He should go back, before someone had to come looking for him out here. How can I face the queen again? He bowed his head, running both hands hard through his hair and scrubbing at his scalp, as if he could shake loose some new thought from his suddenly too-tight skin. But nothing came, and he stared out at the deepening mist again.

  The fog had formed in earnest. It even seemed to reach up to the sky to draw down the clouds and the stars beneath them, for he could now see tiny pinpricks of light shining within the soft grey blanket of mist. No. He looked again. Those were not stars. They moved. What were they? Gareth leaned forward. They were gold. No. Bright white. No. Blue, like the heart of the fire.

  Without realizing he had moved, Gareth was on his hands and knees, leaning forward, his eyes straining into the mist, trying to see the lights. They were blue and green, white and gold. There were four of them. Now five. Now six. They moved in a dance he could not understand or explain, but if he looked a little closer, got a little closer, he would see it plainly. It was important. He knew that. He had to understand.

  He was on his feet and two steps down the hill. Warning rippled through him with the touch of the cold air on his face, but it was quickly gone, and all that mattered was reaching the lights that moved in their solemn dance. He had to get close enough to understand what it was he saw.

  The lights moved slowly away, and Gareth, stumbling over stones hidden by the mists ran toward them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Morning came slowly. The sun could not be seen, but the mists around them gradually brightened from grey to white. Lynet woke to find mist had wormed its way through the pavilion walls, dampening furs and blankets alike. Her cloak was no better, and she shivered as she passed between the ladies complaining of the damp and of the cold to look out on what could be seen.

  There was nothing. There was only the deep green grass before their tent, and swirling white beyond. She could make out the dim shapes of men moving back and forth in the fog. She could hear the sounds of the camp, but all were muffled by the thickened air. Men cursed the wood and peat that was too sodden to take any spark. The damp clung like cold sweat to her hands and brow.

  The queen came up behind her, frowning out at the mists. “Well. There is no going forward until this lifts. We may as well be comfortable. Daere, Agnes, light the braziers, if they will light, and see what may be got to break our fast.”

  The maids accepted their orders and made their curtsies, setting about on their business. Lynet, though, lingered in the doorway. She had known these fogs from her earliest days, but there was something else in the air, something that made her uneasy. A hundred old stories, things half-seen and half-believed all crowded into her mind. She touched her mirror through the purse as if it were a talisman to keep them all at bay. Once more she felt the confines of her own flesh, and resented being forced back to herself.

  “Will you join us, Lady Lynet?” inquired the queen, who had taken her seat.

  The idea of sitting quietly and decorously with the queen’s ladies while the mists held the world in suspense sent a shudder up Lynet’s spine. She repressed it and bowed her head respectfully instead. “With permission, Your Majesty, I would like to go check on Squire Brendon. This damp will be bad for his lungs.”

  The queen wavered for a moment. After last night, this might be one too many times to wander off on her own errand. Queen Guinevere had, after all, sworn to protect her as well as help her, and Lynet had not exactly embraced that protection.

  But the queen nodded at last. “Mind you do not go out beyond the camp. We would lose you for certain in this.”

  Lynet made her curtsey and let Daere put her thickest cloak over her shoulders. She left the pavilion acutely aware that the queen watched her walk away.

  Worry trembled through her. She would make this a short walk, just long enough to make sure all was right with her people and her patient. Then, she would return to the ladies pavilion and spend the day at the queen’s side sedately and properly occupied in sharing stories, riddles and songs with the others to pass the time until the world reappeared around them.

  With this resolve, Lynet turned toward the place where she could see the most movement. The mists gave way for perhaps a yard around her, letting her see just enough of the ground to keep from tripping over the stones and hummocks. She passed the men sitting beside dead fires and staring gloomily out at the fog, as they ate bread and beer watered by the thin drizzle. Hobbled horses hung their heads. The mists left silver droplets to their manes. A few of the more spirited shook their heads, scattering a small grey rain of their own making and snorting as if adding a horse-voiced curse to the general gloom. Dozens of familiar, everyday human sounds were all rendered chill and strange because in the veiled daylight she could not see their sources.

  After a few minutes wandering about looking for some landmark, Lynet was beginning to realize she would have to ask if anyone knew the way to the squire’s tent. Even in this close encampment, she could not find her w
ay clearly. Then, a gangly young man pelted out of the thicker mists heading straight into her path. Lynet swung around at the same moment he pulled up short.

  “Your pardon, my lady!” Lionel cried making a deep and hasty bow.

  “There is no need,” she said, waving the incident away. “Though you might go a little slower.”

  “Yes my lady.” He shifted his weight, and Lynet stepped a little further aside so that he could continue on whatever his urgent errand was. But Lionel did not move. “Forgive me, my lady,” he said cautiously. “But have you spoken with Squire Gareth this morning?”

  Lynet felt her spine straighten just a little. “No, I have not. Why?”

  Disappointment creased the squire’s face. “He’s gone missing. My lord Lancelot is most displeased.” Lionel glowered at the fog. “When we find him, Gareth will wish he’d stayed in his own bed this time.” He caught himself, remembering who stood right beside him and turned pale. “Forgive me, my lady, I only meant …”

  “It’s all right, Squire Lionel.” Although it wasn’t. Now she understood the reason for the cautious tone of his inquiry. Gareth was a rake. If she admitted she had seen him last night, there were very few good conclusions that could be drawn from that.

  The other truth sank more slowly into her. Gareth was missing. He had been with her last night, until late. The mists had already begun to rise then. She’d stumbled away, leaving him behind her, and then … then what? Then where?

  She’d left him when the mists were already rising from the moor.

  “Go on with your search,” she managed to say. “We do not want Lord Lancelot angry with you both.”

  Lionel shuddered. “No, my lady, we do not.” He made another hasty bow and took his leave, too quickly, because as the fog embraced him, he smacked into someone who cuffed and cursed him and sent him splashing off again.